South Asian migrant workers building renewable energy projects in Saudi Arabia face exploitation and labour abuses, including excessive hours, high recruitment fees and average monthly salaries of just $370, a report published by a global rights organisation showed on Thursday.

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude oil exporter, is investing heavily to become a major player in the global clean energy transition and hit net zero by 2060, seeking to reduce its economic dependence on oil as the world shifts away from fossil fuels.

But as the kingdom races to transform its economy with solar and green hydrogen projects, the migrants building them are exposed to abusive hiring practices, low pay, excessive working hours, unsafe conditions and have no way to seek redress, according to the report by the London-headquartered Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC).

The researchers interviewed 31 Nepali and three Bangladeshi workers from nine renewables projects, including solar farms and the NEOM Green Hydrogen Project. They found more than half of the workers had been subjected to forced labour.

Saudi Arabia, home to millions of foreign workers, has long been criticised over its rights record for migrant labourers. Trade unions are banned, there is no minimum wage for migrants and the kingdom still enforces the “kafala” system of foreign labourer sponsorship.

A study by another rights group last year found similar labour violations involving migrants working on renewables projects in the United Arab Emirates.

“Saudi Arabia feels like a jail. We’re like prisoners … They brought us here and dumped us in the desert,” a Nepali worker on the Al Kahfah Solar PV Plant told BHRRC, which said the workers’ vulnerability was exacerbated by the isolated desert locations of many of the energy transition developments and project-by-project hiring by sub-contractors.

Saudi Arabia’s ACWA Power, the solar project’s developer, did not reply to the researchers’ requests for comment.

‘Alarming’ heat exposure

All of the workers interviewed were charged non-refundable recruitment fees averaging $1,600. Salaries as low as $250 per month in some instances pushed many of the migrants to work extra hours to send money home – many recounting seven-day weeks.

More than half of them reported suffering wage theft, such as deductions for taking breaks – despite often working in blistering heat above 50 degrees Celsius.

“One of the most alarming patterns of abuse was heat exposure,” said Catriona Fraser, the report’s lead researcher, adding that the abuses they had identified appeared to be “systemic and exacerbated by the structure of the industry”.

They suffered heat-related illness, including fainting, nosebleeds and – in one case – a suspected heart attack that led to death at NEOM Green Hydrogen Project, the report said.

On a few occasions, workers staged protests – which are banned in Saudi Arabia – to denounce their conditions, including at the Sudair Solar PV plant. But Fraser said protesters had been punished, with several dismissed and deported.

Neither of those two projects responded to requests for comment by the report’s authors.

‘Voices must be surfaced, not silenced’

Fraser said the researchers’ findings should increase scrutiny of the kingdom’s efforts to become a major player in global clean energy supply chains, including exporting renewable power to Europe.

“In its bid to host the 2034 FIFA Men’s Football World Cup, the country spotlights its NEOM host-city and the green hydrogen plant where we identified abuse, yet makes no mention of the migrants whose labour is helping power the transition. Their voices must be surfaced, not silenced,” she said.

Rights campaigners have criticised the decision to hold the World Cup in Saudi Arabia due to labour practices including the “kafala” system, which binds workers to their employers, despite 2021 reforms that allowed some migrant workers to leave the country without permission.

Saudi Arabia’s Human Resources and Social Development Ministry did not respond to a request for comment by Climate Home News. The kingdom has previously rejected criticism of its human rights record.

BHRRC said several global investors were helping to finance the projects at which it identified labour abuses, including Standard Chartered, HSBC and JPMorgan Chase.

Asked to comment by BHRRC, HSBC said “we follow a clear set of sustainability risk policies which guide our approach to financing and include human rights considerations”.

Standard Chartered told the researchers it could not comment on specific cases but outlined its processes for evaluating environmental and social (E&S) risks when providing financial services to clients.

JPMorgan Chase did not respond to their request for comment.

Fraser urged all the companies involved in the projects identified in the research to “commit to investigating these violations”.

“[The rollout] of renewables must be fast, but not at the expense of the human rights of workers and communities,” the report said.

Main image: A view of the cityscape in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (Photo: REUTERS/Mohammed Benmansour)

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