Human Rights

Background Information

During the bid process, the Dallas Sports Commission engaged 250 stakeholders across several human rights issues pre-identified by FIFA for exploration. The resulting Human Rights Plan was submitted during the bid process along with other technical aspects.

In July 2024, FIFA World Cup 26™ issued their long-awaited Human Rights Framework (Framework). This Framework differed from the request made during the bid process and asked Host Committees to examine human rights violations in three areas:

  1. Inclusion and Safeguarding – Inclusion and non-discrimination, safeguarding, human trafficking, gender equity, LGBTQIA+, gender-based violence, freedom of assembly, expression and press, accessibility, and security and policing.
  2. Workers’ Rights – Fair wages, child labor, non-discrimination, inclusive hiring protocols, grievances and access to remedy, forced labor and labor trafficking, poor working conditions, occupational, health and safety, freedom of association and collective bargaining, migrant workers’ rights, rest and reasonable limitation of working hours, preventing and addressing harassment and abuse at work, responsible contracting and transparent dealings.
  3. Access to Remedy – ensuring that anyone that may have experienced a human rights violation linked to hosting in North Texas has access to remedy in addition to workers.

Aligning the 2020 Bid Plan Submission to the new FIFA World Cup 26™ Framework

The now North Texas FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee (NTFWCOC) crossed the bid plan submission from 2020 with the new Framework to align the input from the bid plan with the new expectations FIFA World Cup 26™ set. The results of the cross are as follows:

  1. There were 89 opportunities to mitigate potential harms for what now falls under Safeguarding and Inclusion.
  2. There were 12 opportunities to mitigate potential harms for what now falls under Workers’ Rights.
  3. There were 0 ideas on Access to Remedy, this was not an area of analysis required during the bid process.
  4. Note – Human Trafficking was flagged as a special area of concern by North Texas area stakeholders.

Recent: October 31, 2024, Human Rights Workshop Summary and Next Steps

With the release of the new Framework in July 2024, the NTFWCOC designed and hosted an in person Human Rights workshop on October 31, 2024, with 125 stakeholders. At the workshop, the 125 stakeholders further prioritized 64 of the 102 ideas proposed in the 2020 bid plan. These 64 ideas will now undergo a legal, feasibility, and budget analysis. The results of this and the finalized list of action steps to prepare our community for the World Cup will be shared in a virtual report out call on January 22, 2025, at 10 AM CST. If you have not been involved and would like to be, please reach out to minal@dallasfwc26.com and she will add you to the invite after first adding you to our stakeholder list.

A final Human Rights Action Plan is currently due to FIFA World Cup 26™ on August 29, 2025. For transparency, we will also publish the Action Plan here.

If you have questions, concerns, or comments, please email our Chief Human Rights Officer at minal@dallasfwc26.com

For media inquiries, please contact media@dallasfwc26.com.