Mohammed Fouad, legal consultant to Qatar’s national human rights committee, is juggling two phones in a new building between a Qatar Airways office and a branch of Villeroy and Boch, an upmarket household goods boutique.

Mr Fouad has an unenviable task. This month the US State Department kept Qatar and three fellow members of the Gulf Co-operation Council – Saudi Arabia, Oman and Kuwait – on Tier 3, the poorest possible rating in its Trafficking in Persons report.