Amazon has paid $1.9m to hundreds of current and former workers in the wake of revelations by the Guardian and other media partners about abuses against migrants who labored at the online retail giant’s warehouses in Saudi Arabia.

Amazon said in a statement that it paid reimbursements to more than 700 migrant workers who had been required to pay recruitment fees and other costs to secure work at the company’s distribution centers in Saudi Arabia. In announcing this action, the company said it’s committed to “fundamental human rights and the dignity of people connected to our business around the world”. Amazon said last fall that it employed nearly 1,500 permanent and seasonal workers in Saudi Arabia.

These payments came after the recruitment fees and other unfair practices were exposed by a joint media investigation by the Guardian, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), NBC News and Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism…

The Guardian and ICIJ recently talked to 40 workers from Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan who said they had received payments from Amazon or were expecting to get them soon. An Amazon spokesperson confirmed that workers from those countries had received payments and said workers from additional countries had also received reimbursements for their recruitment fees, but declined to name those countries…