Fairsquare describes itself as “a non-profit organisation. We combine thorough, hard-hitting research with impactful advocacy to promote systemic change and stop human rights abuses.” Some of the abuses, which Fairsquare have investigated have been regarding the use of migrant labour in Saudi Arabia, in what is known as the Kafala System. This is a system, that regulates migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, which has become a magnet for desperate workers from other countries, especially from African and the Indian sub-continent. It is a system of which it is said that recent piecemeal reforms have given a veneer of respectability to what is actually a brutal system, based on exploitation, including the use of forced labour (modern day slavery), the withholding of passports and working conditions so dangerous that many migrant workers in Saudi Arabia have lost their lives working there.
Fairsquare report
Fairsquare has recently published a report, Underlying Causes: unexplained migrant worker deaths in Saudi Arabia, about the conditions facing migrant workers in Saudi Arabia. The report states that there is a critical absence of effective processes and policies, when it comes to investigating the causes of the deaths of migrant workers in Saudi Arabia.
The report also noted that the upswing of construction, associated with projects such as the 2034 World Cup and the NEOM project will most likely lead to thousands of unexplained deaths of low-paid foreign workers in the country.
On the same day that the Fairsquare report was published, another, separate and independent investigation by Human Rights Watch similarly found that the relevant Saudi authorities had failed to investigate “workplace safety incidents, ensure timely and adequate compensation for families and adequately protect workers from preventable deaths”.
James Lynch
FairSquare co-director James Lynch said: “Hundreds of thousands of young men, many of whom have young families, are being pitched into a labour system that poses a serious risk to their lives, a medical system that doesn’t have the capacity to determine the cause of their deaths, and a political system that doesn’t appear to either protect them or find out how they died, let alone compensate the families shattered by Saudi Arabia’s negligence.
“While FIFA praises Saudi Arabia to the rafters and highly-paid western law firms generate vast profits for curating Saudi’s reputation, children in places like Nepal grow up without their fathers and never even learn how they died.”
The deaths of workers from Nepal
Underlying Causes: unexplained migrant worker deaths in Saudi Arabia was compiled from government and medical documents, which relate to the deaths of 17 Nepali men in Saudi Arabia in 2023 and 2024. There was also what was described as, “a comprehensive examination of government data and peer-reviewed articles that address serious shortcoming in both occupational health and safety and medico-legal investigations in Saudi Arabia”.
It is also noted that the report describes the economic and emotional consequences of the 17 deaths on the families of the men concerned. Most of these families received “no meaningful information on how their loved ones died, and none of whom received any compensation from Saudi Arabia”.
The 22-year-old widow of one of the dead men, Surya Nath commented: “We have loans. We have taken loans from the village money lenders. We have 1 million rupees [$7250] that we took to pay for my medical bills. I don’t have to say more. I just need help.”
The 17 men all worked in low-paid labour-intensive sectors of the economy and five of them were reported to have died in workplace accidents, while 12 died from diseases or conditions.
Fairsquare also say that: “In cases of five deaths resulting from workplace accidents, families received no information to suggest that investigations had taken place, despite varying amounts of circumstantial evidence indicating that employer negligence may have been a factor. The families of 8 of the 12 men whose deaths did not result from workplace accidents had no medical documentation and no information on the specific cause of their family member’s death”.
The father of 28-year-old construction worker Arbind Kumar Sah, killed by a vehicle that struck him while he was working and whose death certificate states incorrectly that he was killed in a fall commented: “They are forcing me to give my small house to them if I can’t pay the money back. Three or four moneylenders are pressuring me to give them my house. Whom should I give it to? If I can’t pay it soon, I’ll be homeless.”
Badri Bhujel
There are also said to be serious failings in Saudi Arabia’s system of certifying deaths, as shown in Badri Bhujel’s case. Bhujel “worked as a machine operator for Samsung C&T, a contractor constructing nearly 30km of tunnels for the proposed city of NEOM, in the north west of Saudi Arabia”.
Fairsquare says that they have seen the hospital-issued death certificate, which states that the cause of Bhujel’s death was “alveolar and parietoalveolar conditions”. Additionally, the certificate notes that Bhujel had been “diagnosed with pulmonary tuberculosis two days prior to his death. This diagnosis is consistent with accounts given by Bhujel’s colleagues, who told FairSquare that five days before his death Bhujel suddenly vomited large amounts of blood while at work and was taken to hospital by ambulance”.
However, according to the Ministry of Interior death certificate Bhujel simply died from a “natural death” and includes none of the information reported by the doctors who treated Bhujel.
Comment
Yet again we see a disregard for both human rights and indeed human life itself, in the way that the Saudi regime rules the country. It has been reported recently that trade unions are taking Saudi Arabia to the court through the International Labour Organisation because of the exploitation and deaths of migrant workers in that country. It can only be hoped by any reasonable person that they are successful.
Meanwhile in and around Newcastle, a city now so closely linked with Saudi Arabia and its regime, it is surely time for more people to speak out about what is happening in that particular gulf state. As just one example, it is well documented that Newcastle United shirt sleeve sponsor Noon use forced labour in their operations. It is incumbent on both local and regional politicians and trade unions in the North East to put whatever relevant pressure they can on the regime in Saudi Arabia to try and ensure that the dire prediction of a surge migrant workers deaths in Saudi Arabia, which the Fairsquare report sees as very likely, doesn’t come to pass.
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