2024-02-23 16:34:24
According to the results of the investigation opened by the multinational, hundreds of migrants were forced to pay fees to recruitment agents before finding a job.
US online retail giant Amazon said Friday it had refunded $1.9 million to more than 700 contract workers in Saudi Arabia who were subject to illegal recruitment fees and other abuses.
The human rights organization Amnesty International denounced in October the conditions imposed on migrants employed by third-party companies to work in Amazon warehouses in the Gulf kingdom, pushing the multinational to open an investigation.
Violations of company policies
“We found cases where contract workers were forced to pay fees, including recruitment fees and other costs,” by Saudi recruitment agents or labor supply companies, a the company said in a statement, claiming to have “paid $1.9 million in reimbursements” to more than 700 of them.
The investigation also found other violations of company policies, including “substandard housing conditions, irregularities in contracts and wages, and delays in resolving worker complaints,” according to Amazon, which says it has imposed improvements on its suppliers. Amnesty International based itself on the testimonies of 22 Nepalis who worked in Amazon warehouses in Saudi Arabia between 2021 and 2023.
“Essential step”
Thinking of being directly hired by the American company, some had gone into heavy debt to pay the fees imposed by the recruiters, before finding themselves “deprived of their income, housed in terrible conditions and prevented from finding another job or leaving the country”. After the publication of the report, the Saudi authorities indicated that these “alarming facts (…) were already the subject of an ongoing investigation”.
“Amazon’s reimbursement of illegal recruitment fees is an essential step,” responded the head of Economic and Social Justice at Amnesty International, Steve Cockburn. He nevertheless estimated that “the hundreds of other workers” who had already left the company and the country should also be taken into account.
They “may have faced similar abuses, including deception, wage theft and high recruitment fees. They too deserve justice and compensation,” he said.
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