Hundreds of migrant workers employed in Saudi Arabia by the manufacturing and supply company Sendan International did not receive their salaries for up to eight months, Human Rights Watch said today. They include workers employed in state-owned oil company Aramco project sites.
Migrant workers were often stranded without pay for months, forced into undocumented status, or left with no choice but to return home at their own expense, abandoning outstanding wages and benefits. These abuses have occurred as Saudi Arabia is undergoing a massive construction boom, including building 11 new and refurbished stadiums ahead of FIFA's 2034 World Cup. Aramco is a "major worldwide partner" of FIFA and sponsors other global sports bodies.
"The failure of Sendan International, Aramco, and Saudi authorities to ensure migrant workers receive their wages is only one recent example of the impunity for Saudi businesses that enables them to mistreat workers," said Michael Page, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. "The lack of effective protections for migrant workers in Saudi Arabia is a stark warning to FIFA and other companies that their operations in Saudi Arabia will be stained with widespread labor abuses unless they demand genuine labor protections."
Between June and August 2025, Human Rights Watch spoke with 14 migrant worker employees of Sendan International from migrant origin countries Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. At least eight had worked on Aramco project sites. Workers said they had stopped working in March after being unpaid for up to eight months. Based on media reports from Nepal and India, at least 850 workers claim they did not receive their wages for months. The actual figure could be even higher.
Media reports indicate that Sendan International may have ceased operations in December 2024, but workers Human Rights Watch interviewed said they continued working until March 2025 and Sendan International did not respond to a Human Rights Watch letter requesting confirmation. If Sendan International has ceased operating, Aramco has a responsibility to use its leverage to ensure that workers employed on their sites receive their wages, including through government-backed compensation programs. Aramco, too, did not respond to a request for comment.
Human Rights Watch also wrote to Saudi Arabia's Human Resources and Social Development Ministry, which responded by acknowledging this case of unpaid wages, detailing government wage protection measures in Saudi Arabia, and stating that "non-compliance of Sendan International Company was detected through the Wage Protection System, and corrective action was taken in coordination with the company, the affected workers, and their embassies."
While the ministry also stated that "affected workers were provided with guidance and access to dedicated mechanisms for recovering their dues, and the Ministry continues to monitor the situation until all claims are resolved," it did not provide answers to follow-up questions regarding how many workers were impacted by unpaid waged and the number of claims submitted or resolved.
Human Rights Watch found that the Al-Etihad Cooperative Insurance Company, which provides compensation for such workers under the government's Expatriate Worker Wage Insurance Service, has started collecting information for the unpaid workers, though many impacted workers have not filed claims, or have not heard back if they did. Human Rights Watch has not been able to determine whether any workers have been compensated, and Al-Etihad did not respond to questions about the compensation process.
Based on interviews in June, some stranded workers had been provided with accommodation, but according to workers and media reports, the food Sendan had provided was both inedible and insufficient. One Nepali worker said, "We are eating only rice and lentils. We don't even have money to buy toothpaste or shampoo."
Workers said their families back home were struggling without remittances, including to pay off recruitment loans charged by recruiters in their home countries, which are illegal under Saudi laws. "Until eight months ago, I used to send home INR 30,000 [about US$340] every month," said a worker from India. "Now they have to send money to me for my expenses."
Out of desperation, hundreds of workers protested or took to social media despite the fear of arrest, as Saudi Arbia bans protests. One worker on an Aramco site who is owed around SAR 20,000 [about $5,330] said: "Our supervisor on site pressured us to continue working, but we refused."
Some workers, including those who chose not to strike, went to work elsewhere without authorization, despite the risks of detention and deportation. "I saw many workers protesting," a Bangladeshi worker said. "But thinking about my family, I quietly left and ran away from the company."
Another Bangladeshi worker who had paid recruitment fees of BDT 420,000 [about $3,435] said: "About seven months after I joined the company, the problems began.…When I asked my Indian supervisor, the response was 'Look, I'm facing the same problem. The company doesn't pay me properly either. I can't tell you anything.'" The worker was forced to seek irregular work elsewhere, risking deportation.
Wage theft against migrant workers remains one of the most widespread abuses in Saudi Arabia, as documented by Human Rights Watch and in an outstanding forced labor complaint to the International Labour Organization (ILO) against Saudi Arabia by the 12 million-member-strong Building and Wood Workers' International Union (BWI). Victims are rarely compensated for their legally owed wages and, even when they are, it can take years to receive them.
While Saudi Arabia introduced the wage insurance service in October 2024 for migrant workers in private establishments when employers fail to meet their payment obligations, but it has severe limits and is grossly inadequate to address the extent of abuse. Migrant workers can only submit a claim after being unpaid for at least 6 months and if 80 percent of the workers in the company are similarly affected. This automatically denies a remedy in a large majority of wage theft cases.
Despite this narrow eligibility, workers at Sendan International are eligible for the insurance. However, 8 of the 11 workers Human Rights Watch followed up with in August had not applied out of fear it would affect their employment prospects in Saudi Arabia or lead to deportation as undocumented workers. The three workers who submitted claims are still awaiting responses.
A former Sendan worker with outstanding recruitment loans has not filed for his claims due to his irregular status and told Human Rights Watch, "I'm constantly afraid that if the police catch me, they will deport me."
Two workers who found new jobs said they did not submit claims because they are scared it would adversely impact their chances to work. One worker said: "I thought if I claim my dues, I might not get the release paper [to transfer to a new company]. So I decided not to."
Even for eligible victims of the who may eventually get the money owed them, coverage is capped at SAR 17,500 [US$ 4,663] and excludes end-of-service benefits. International labor standards say that in the event of wage theft, workers should be guaranteed full wages owed and also provided compensation for losses incurred by delayed payments.
"If compensation to victims in a wage theft case of this scale where workers dared to protest is so flawed, it is clear that many workers who face similar and even worse abuses are falling through the cracks," Page said.
