About the Speaker
Malcolm
Bidali
Migrant workers’ rights activist
Malcolm Bidali is a former migrant worker in Qatar and the co-founder of Migrant Defenders, a Kenya-based civil society organization defending the rights of migrant workers in the Gulf. While in Qatar, he became a prominent anonymous whistleblower about the brutal conditions for migrant laborers in the lead-up to Qatar’s hosting of the 2022 FIFA World Cup. In May 2021, the Qatari regime unmasked his identity and imprisoned him in solitary confinement for nearly a month on trumped-up charges of “disseminating false news and receiving payments from foreign agents to spread disinformation. He is the 2023 laureate of the Nuremberg International Human Rights Award for his “undeterred fight against the exploitation of migrant workers.