The ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) is celebrating the first victory for staff rights at Qatar Airways (QR) after the airline admitted that it has removed its contractual pregnancy and marriage prohibitions.

The company had previously imposed ridiculous rules on women working at the airline, requiring that anyone becoming pregnant had to notify management, at which point the individual was likely to lose her job. The company also forbade marriage for the first five years of employment, after which time permission to marry still had to be sought from the employer.

The two bans were exposed by the ITF. The airline was forced to review its working practices following the exposure and their inclusion in a complaint made by the ITF and ITUC (International Trade Union Confederation) to the International Labour Organization (ILO) in June 2014.

The complaint was upheld by the ILO in June 2015 in a judgment that found the airline guilty of systemic workplace sex discrimination, particularly in relation to the marriage and pregnancy prohibitions. The airline subsequently admitted that it has changed the offending policy. 

ITF general secretary Steve Cotton commented: “Since we first made these rules public in September 2013 we have made it clear that they had to go. By exposing them we unleashed a torrent of stories of what it is like to work for the airline. These show that it still has far to go and much to learn about treating its personnel as human beings, but, under pressure, it has made some progress. We congratulate everyone, including those who bravely and secretly spoke to us from inside the airline, those in trade unions, in the wider aviation industry and in the media who helped us decry these abuses and force the airline into this action.”

ITF president Paddy Crumlin added: “Qatar Airways has been shamed into action, and that’s a tremendous advance. No amount of hiding behind ‘best airline’ awards has kept the truth about how staff are treated from emerging. We, along with everyone who works for the airline, hope that they will now address what many of those workers call the ‘climate of fear’ at Qatar. There’s much to be done but the airline has made one step towards it.”