HUMAN RIGHTS

We have a comprehensive human rights action plan that will be published in December 2025 as per FIFA, but rest assured, we are in the process of executing across all 21 human rights issues required and have approximately 100 tactics in our plan. In the meantime, here is a snapshot of planned human rights mitigations, including human trafficking – remember it is just a sampling: 

TRAININGS

Human trafficking, LGBTQIA+ sensitivity, and accessibility training is currently under development and will be implemented across key sectors and people groups, including police and private security, transportation, volunteers, and the hospitality industry. These trainings will run from January through May 2026; training logistics are still being determined.  

WORKER RIGHTS AND HUMAN TRAFFICKING

We implemented a Responsible Contracting Policy and associated processes across Host City Contracts and all sub-tier agreements to ensure strong worker protections and proactively mitigate the risk of labor exploitation and human trafficking throughout our supply chain. This is currently in place. 

To support this policy, we plan to establish a dedicated Worker Center at the FIFA Fan Festival, offering a space where workers can file grievances. All services and materials will be provided in both English and Spanish to ensure accessibility for everyone.

We secured a strategic international partner and are preparing to launch a comprehensive social media campaign focused on raising awareness among buyers, addressing gender-based violence, and more, all through a soccer-related lens. The posts will run from May 2026 to July 2026. 

ACCESSIBILITY

Stakeholders also asked us to assess accessibility options for rideshare. Both Uber and Lyft offer wheelchair-accessible rides, support for mobility devices, and clear policies allowing service animals. Uber is rolling out features to reduce discrimination against visually impaired riders, while Lyft supports screen readers and offers assisted ride services.  

FIFA Fan Festival will be an accessible event. We have over 20 accessibility integrations planned, more details to come in May 2026.  

FREE SPEECH

We are currently developing content and designing a Free Speech Toolkit to help ensure protestors understand what constitutionally protected free speech is and specifically ensure that time, place, and manner restrictions are understood so we can support lawful expression and peaceful protests.  

For more information on the history of stakeholder engagement and the development of human rights action plan, keep reading... 

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Between 2019 and 2022, the Houston 2026 World Cup Bid Human Rights Sub-Committee engaged over 100 stakeholders to address key human rights issues identified by FIFA. The resulting Human Rights Plan was submitted as part of the bid, alongside other technical components.

Two years later, FIFA World Cup 26™ released its Human Rights Framework in July 2024. Unlike the original bid-phase requirements, the new Framework instructed Host Committees to examine human rights violations in three specific 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 Houston has access to remedy in addition to workers.

BID TO HOST CITY DESIGNATION

To develop the plan during the bid phase, Stakeholders were asked to complete a pre-meeting survey to capture their individual expertise on risks associated with hosting the FIFA World Cup 2026™. They ranked risks by priority level and linked them to activities associated with hosting, such as preparing public venues.

During a subsequent meeting organized by the FIFA World Cup 26 Houston™ Human Rights Sub-Committee involving stakeholders and facilitators, identified risks were further prioritized, with the most critical advancing to the next phase to identify mitigation opportunities.

Stakeholders were then tasked with developing opportunities to address the prioritized risks in another pre-meeting survey and subsequent meeting, which led to the creation of a final list of opportunities and activities that served as the basis of the 200-page Human Rights Plan submitted during the bid process.

In addition to this process, FIFA World Cup 26 Houston™ consulted with numerous other agencies with a national and international reach to further inform the plan.

ALIGNING THE 2021 BID PLAN SUBMISSION TO THE NEW FIFA WORLD CUP 26™ FRAMEWORK AFTER HOST CITY DESIGNATION

The now Houston Host Committee (HCC) crossed the bid plan submission from 2021 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 37 opportunities to mitigate potential harms for what now falls under Safeguarding and Inclusion.

2. There were 31 opportunities to mitigate potential harms for what now falls under Workers’ Rights.

3. There were 5 ideas on Access to Remedy.

HUMAN RIGHTS ACTION PLAN FEEDBACK AND NEXT STEPS

Once the FIFA World Cup 26™ Human Rights Framework was released, we did the cross, and we created a new draft Human Rights Action Plan that was released for public feedback on April 8, 2025. The feedback period closed on April 30, 2025, during which 8 points of input were submitted by 2 stakeholders. The final Human Rights Action plan will be published December 2025.

If you have questions, concerns, or comments, please email our Chief Legacy Officer: Minal Davis at mdavis@fwc26houston.com.