In June 2025, it was reported that trade unions from 36 countries filed a complaint with the International Labour Organisation (ILO) over human rights violations impacting migrant workers in Saudi Arabia. According to The Guardian, “trade unions from the UK, Japan, Canada, Australia and 13 African countries including Nigeria, Ghana and Senegal” filed the complaint, despite opposition from Saudi Arabia.

The complaint lists cases of trafficking and forced labour, among other egregious violations, and calls for reform and a ‘commission of inquiry’ into labour rights in the country.

Risks to migrant workers in the country are well-documented, and human rights groups have warned of a catalogue of worker deaths in the ‘building boom’ fuelled by the FIFA World Cup, to be hosted by Saudi Arabia in 2034. According to The Guardian, FIFA has said that the human rights policy submitted in Saudi Arabia’s bid to host the World Cup commits it to embedding ILO standards into the process.

In March 2026, Amnesty International released an article alleging the Saudi Arabian government is ‘actively seeking to have [the] ILO complaint buried’. The article emphasises that many workers continue to be subjected to serious human rights abuses in the country.

A joint statement signed by six human rights groups calls on the ILO to ‘stand firm’ against the alleged Saudi efforts to dismiss the complaint, including by rejecting the country’s request to prematurely close the complaint.