...Responding to Amazon’s announcement today that the company has paid US$1.9 million to reimburse more than 700 workers contracted to its operations in Saudi Arabia, following an Amnesty International report in October 2023, Steve Cockburn, Amnesty International’s Head of Economic and Social Justice, said:

“Amazon’s reimbursement of unlawful recruitment fees is a vital step towards providing remedy for hundreds of migrant workers who suffered a range of severe labour abuses while contracted to the company in Saudi Arabia. We know from workers how important these payments are to rebuilding their lives. While these payments will provide some immediate relief to workers who have often had to take on significant debts for the opportunity to work for Amazon, they must go hand in hand with much stricter measures to ensure such shocking abuses – which likely amounted to human trafficking in some cases – can never happen again.

“With better due diligence, and by responding effectively to complaints from workers, Amazon could have prevented these abuses occurring in the first place. Remedy should be extended to hundreds of other workers contracted by Amazon who have already left the company or country, yet are likely to have faced similar abuses including deception, wage theft, and hefty recruitment fees. They too deserve justice and compensation.” …