Unions from 36 countries protest over treatment of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia
The complaint calls for a 'commission of inquiry' into labour rights in the country, one of the most powerful tools available to the ILO, a United Nations agency. The demand comes amid growing concern that not enough is being done to improve the conditions of workers as development begins to scale up before the Fifa World Cup, due to take place in the Gulf state in 2034.
Luc Triangle, the general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation, said the 'scale and severity' of the issues in Saudi Arabia demanded the strongest response. 'This is a call for immediate action towards genuine, inclusive and collaborative reform,' he said. 'We cannot tolerate another death of a migrant worker in Saudi Arabia. We cannot remain silent while migrant workers, especially construction and domestic workers continue to face fundamental rights violations. This has to stop now.'
The news comes on the day the ILO announced a new cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, signed on the sidelines of its key annual gathering, the International Labour Conference, held in Geneva this week. Under the initial two-year agreement Saudi Arabia is expected to begin to align its laws with international labour standards.
Human rights groups and trade unions have repeatedly warned that the World Cup, and other major projects, could be tarnished by abusive conditions endured by migrant workers in constructing the necessary infrastructure. These concerns include extortionate recruitment fees, non-payment of wages, false contracts, passport confiscation and exposure to extreme heat. Thousands of workers could be likely to die as construction ramps up, the rights group FairSquare claimed last month.
The number of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia has surged in recent years to more than 13 million, driven in part by a massive construction boom linked to the World Cup and so-called giga-projects.
The Guardian understands that Saudi Arabia's agreement with the ILO includes proposals for new measures to support fair recruitment and make it easier for workers to change jobs, the introduction of a minimum wage and the inclusion of migrant workers on workers' representative committees. Trade unions remain prohibited in the country.
The agreement also sets out commitments to improve the compensation system for workers who are injured or killed. In the longer term, it promises to strengthen protections for domestic workers, who have been excluded from key provisions of the labour law.
The planned reforms have failed to satisfy trade union delegates. Trade unions from the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia and 13 African countries including Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal pushed through the complaint, despite fierce opposition from the Saudis.
Sign up to The Recap
The best of our sports journalism from the past seven days and a heads-up on the weekend's action
after newsletter promotion
The complaint, which the Guardian has seen, lists dozens of cases of alleged human trafficking, forced labour, wage theft and physical and sexual abuse of migrant workers. 'Africans go to Saudi Arabia looking for life but come back in coffins,' said Omar Osman, the general secretary of the federation of Somali trade unions and one of the signatories.
The complaint follows submissions made this year by the Building and Woodworkers International to the ILO over migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, and African trade unions raised with Fifa concerns over the treatment of workers.
Fifa says the human rights policy submitted as part of Saudi Arabia's bid for the World Cup commits the country to embedding ILO standards as part of the 2034 process. In a letter to Human Rights Watch in April, the secretary general of Fifa, Mattias Grafström, wrote that 'the work to implement the measures outlined in the bid strategy has started and is a priority for Fifa'. The trade union complaint is understood to acknowledge that this dialogue has begun.
The Ministry of Human Resources and Social Development in Saudi Arabia was approached for comment.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
'He never left Gaza in his mind': Israeli soldier died by suicide after being ordered to return
When your son is risking his life fighting in Gaza, you don't expect to hear news he's been killed on a rest period at home. Eliran Mizrahi had served 187 days as a reservist in Gaza since 8 October, before he died by suicide in June last year. His mother Jenny has turned Eliran's childhood bedroom into a shrine. The 40-year-old's combat vest hanging on the wall still has sand in it from Gaza. The cap he was wearing when he died, sits just above it on a shelf laden with memories of his life. Israel is seeing a wave of soldiers like Eliran taking their own lives - five died by suicide just last month. IDF (Israel Defence Forces) investigations have found it is what they have seen and done in Gaza that are the cause, according to reports by the Israeli public broadcaster. Eliran's mother told Sky News her son returned from Gaza a changed man and she fears there will be many more suicides among Israeli soldiers. "He never left Gaza in his mind," says Jenny. "When he came back he couldn't go back to work. He was a great father with a lot of patience. And he lost his patience with his children, with people. "He was very silent. He didn't sleep at night, he had nightmares. We didn't know anything about it. He didn't speak. Whenever we asked him he said everything is okay." Jenny describes Eliran as someone who was happy and friends with everyone. A father of four "with a big heart" and a big smile. But his experience of the war "injured his soul". Initially, he was deployed to clear bodies of people slaughtered by Hamas at the Nova Festival on 7 October and then deployed to Gaza a day later. Eliran was active on social media and shared videos of his time in Gaza. He was commander of a unit of D9 bulldozers that destroyed buildings and tunnel shafts. After his death, his D9 partner, Guy Zaken, told a parliamentary committee they were often shot at and they ran over hundreds of bodies. Yet they filmed themselves smiling and singing to send to their families. Eliran shared some of those videos on social media. Israel has levelled vast parts of Gaza. Eliran's actions were part of a systematic campaign the UN says has damaged or destroyed over 90% of Gaza's homes. Human rights experts warn this could be a war crime. Eliran was pulled out of Gaza after he sustained knee injuries in an RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) attack on his bulldozer. 'The bodies and the blood' He was later diagnosed with PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) - we don't know the cause of his trauma but in the end he couldn't live with it. Two days before he was due to return to active duty, he took his own life. "What he saw over there in Gaza injured his soul. You see all the bodies over there and all the blood. It hurts your soul," says Eliran's mother. Israeli media is reporting at least 18 soldiers have taken their own lives so far this year. Thousands are suffering with PTSD. And more and more reservists are quietly refusing to turn up for duty. The IDF says supporting its service members is a top priority and it invests significant resources in doing so, including deploying mental health officers in all military units. Tuly Flint was one of those officers. A clinical social worker and expert in trauma therapy in his professional life, and a lieutenant colonel in the military reserves, he was deployed to offer psychological support to troops who served in Gaza. Last year, after treating many soldiers and becoming exposed to the extreme suffering of Gazans, Tuly came to the conclusion the war had no purpose and it was a crime against humanity. So he refused to continue to serve in the IDF. "At the beginning of the war what we usually saw was simple PTSD. People who talk about the horrors they saw in the first few weeks with the massacre of Hamas," says Tuly. "But since the second month of the war, people started talking about what takes place on the Palestinian side. "Even people that were not talking about Palestinians' rights, or anything like that, they started talking about the fact that they saw bodies of children, of old people, of women." 'You think, are they lying to me' I asked Tuly how soldiers feel hearing Benjamin Netanyahu 's narrative that there is no starvation in Gaza - that the images we see are a lie. The Israeli military bears witness to what is happening in Gaza in a way most of the world, including international journalists, still can't. "When you hear your government and your commanders telling things that are not true, you start thinking, are they lying to me also?" says Tuly. "When you hear your prime minister lying about things that you saw in Gaza, things that you did ... people talk about torching houses, people talk about a 'deadline' - not a metaphor - a deadline when people cross they will be killed no matter if they are children or women ... they see people starving and they also see the chaos." 2:20 After nearly two years of war, the human cost is weighing heavily on Israeli society. A majority of Israelis now believe that only a deal, not military pressure, will bring the remaining hostages home. And the humanitarian crisis unfolding just across the border is becoming a source of public unease. Former military and intelligence chiefs are also now against the war. The Commanders for Israel's Security group (CIS) has argued, in its professional judgement, "Hamas no longer poses a strategic threat to Israel" - and has written to Donald Trump asking him to compel Benjamin Netanyahu to end the war. Tuly Flint says there's an erosion of trust between soldiers and those leading them. "When you come back home and you hear so many people - former chiefs of staff, former heads of the security bodies of Israel - saying 'this war has no aim anymore' ... you say to yourself: 'I hear from former chiefs of staff that I'm killing hostages by waging war and my government is still sending me there?' "When you see the pictures that you've seen with your own eyes and your government says 'no this is a lie, no this is propaganda', this makes you distrust everyone. And when you distrust everyone, why would you ask for help?" The mental and moral burden on soldiers could be about to grow. Despite strong objections from the IDF's chief of staff, Israel is expanding military operations in Gaza with plans to take control of the entire territory. We understand that references to suicide in any context can be difficult for some people. We provide details of support available from the Samaritans where any such references are included. You can find these here: call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@ in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK.
Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
Desperation as Gaza suffers through heatwave - and a sense of hopelessness in Tel Aviv
As if life in Gaza wasn't hard enough, there is now a heatwave - compounding the problems of minimal water, food and the basics you need to keep a family alive. To keep your children halfway clean, when you've been displaced over and over again, forced to live under tarpaulin rammed up against your neighbours. "We suffer greatly, especially because we live in tents," says Riham Akel, who was displaced from the north and now lives in Gaza City. "They are made of cloth and plastic that do not protect us from the heat. In addition, there is no electricity, drinking water or water for washing, no fans or air conditioning." Given Israel's planned takeover of Gaza City - and the evacuation of the 800,000 or so people now living there - it's likely she'll be forced to move again. In Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, the crowds have swelled these past two Saturdays - almost doubling after Hamas published propaganda videos showing two of the remaining hostages starving in captivity - and now this week, Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to push ahead with full security control of the Gaza Strip. People here just want it to stop. Yael said: "I feel like a hostage in my own country, as though no one listens to me - 80% of the citizens don't want it anymore." "When you talk about the government it's not only Gaza," says David Solomon. "They are trying to undermine the democracy in Israel, they're trying willingly to destroy the whole of Israel, they don't care just for another year or two of their survival." There are also calls for IDF soldiers to refuse to carry out Netanyahu's plan to take over Gaza City. Another major point of contention is what many see as the failure of the International Red Cross to bring food to the hostages. Food for the Palestinians in Gaza is not much discussed, except for a small group on the fringes. "We believe that the Israeli public is ignorant on purpose," says Gilad Melzer - holding up a sign saying "Stop Genocide" with a photo of a starving child. "Some of it wants to stay ignorant and some, the government wants to keep them ignorant of what is going on in Gaza and they're ignorant as well of what is going on in the occupied territories." 3:17 Benjamin Netanyahu seems to have made up his mind, though. He will ramp up the fight, despite international outcry, despite the opposition of his military leadership and despite the tens of thousands who rally each week in Hostages Square, hoping someone in government will bother to listen. There is a sense of hopelessness here - that the solidarity of numbers still makes so little difference.
Daily Mail
3 hours ago
- Daily Mail
UN holds crisis talks over Gaza occupation after Israel's plan for complete military takeover of Gaza sparks international backlash
The UN Security Council is to hold emergency talks today after Israel's plan for a complete military takeover of Gaza sparked international condemnation. Israel's ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, claimed the session was initiated by the UK – and he hit out, insisting that Downing Street would not 'sit idly by' if it was 50 British citizens still being held captive by Hamas terrorists. Of the 50 remaining hostages taken by Hamas fighters during their attack on October 7, 2023, it is believed only 20 are still alive. The UN meeting was announced as US special envoy Steve Witkoff met Qatar 's prime minister in Spain to discuss a new proposal to end the war. Egypt and Qatar are preparing a new ceasefire framework that would include the release of all the remaining hostages in one go, in return for the end of the war and the withdrawal of Israeli forces. A joint statement by nine countries, including Germany, Britain, France and Canada, said that they 'strongly reject' Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's decision for a large-scale military operation in Gaza, saying it will worsen the 'catastrophic humanitarian situation', endanger hostages and further risk mass displacement. They also said that any attempts at annexation or settlement in Gaza violate international law. A separate statement by more than 20 countries, including Egypt, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates, called Israel 's decision a 'dangerous and unacceptable escalation'. Russia said it will aggravate the 'already extremely dramatic situation'. The Israeli security cabinet's decision to take full control of Gaza has also been met with fury by the families of the remaining hostages, who called the decision a 'death sentence' for them. Hostage Matan Zangauker's mother Einav said: 'The living will be murdered, and the dead will disappear for ever. I will finish with a direct call to the prime minister: If you conquer parts of Gaza and the hostages are murdered, we will pursue you. 'Your hands will be stained by the blood of the kidnapped.' The plan has also caused a rift between Israel's security cabinet and defence leaders. Israel Defence Forces chief Eyal Zamir reportedly warned against the proposal, telling ministers that the hostages' lives 'will be in danger if we proceed with a plan to occupy Gaza'. He added: 'We have no way to guarantee they won't be harmed. If that is what you're aiming for, I suggest you drop the return of the hostages as one of the war's objectives.' US Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron of making it harder to achieve a ceasefire with their intention to recognise a Palestinian state. Yesterday, hospital officials in Gaza said that, in the past 24 hours, 11 Palestinians seeking aid were shot dead and 11 adults died of malnutrition-related causes.
