Migrant workers who travelled to Saudi Arabia to work on the Riyadh Metro project were forced to pay exorbitant recruitment fees, worked in dangerous heat and earned pitiful wages during a decade of serious abuse, Amnesty International revealed in a new report today.

The 42-page report - “Nobody wants to work in these situations”: A decade of exploitation on the Riyadh Metro project - documents labour abuses on one of Saudi Arabia’s flagship infrastructure projects. Promoted as the “backbone” of Riyadh’s public transport system, the newly opened metro was built by leading international and Saudi firms under government direction and is slated for further expansion. However, many of the workers Amnesty interviewed were charged illegal fees to secure work and then endured long, arduous hours in sometimes unsafe conditions for minimal, discriminatory pay…

Marta Schaaf, Amnesty International’s Director for Climate, Economic Social Justice and Corporate Accountability, said:

“The Riyadh Metro is hailed as the backbone of the capital’s transport system, yet beneath its sleek exterior lies a decade of abuses enabled by a labour system that sacrifices migrant workers’ human rights. Already burdened with exorbitant recruitment fees, these workers endured punishing hours for meagre wages.

“Their hardships were compounded by exposure to extreme heat in a country where temperatures are soaring thanks to human-induced climate change…