Amazon to pay $1.9 million to migrant contract workers to settle claims of human rights abuses

Amazon will pay more than 700 migrant workers roughly $1.9 million to settle claims they suffered human rights abuses as a result of exploitative labor contracts in Saudi Arabia.

In a blog post Thursday, the company said it hired a third-party labor rights expert, Verité, last year to investigate conditions at two of its warehouses in Saudi Arabia. Verité identified numerous practices in violation of Amazon's supply chain standards, the company said.

Last October, an Amnesty International report, as well as an investigation from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, and the Guardian, detailed accounts of grim conditions for migrant workers at Amazon warehouses in Saudi Arabia.

Migrant workers, many of whom were Nepalese, were deceived by third-party recruiting agencies into thinking they would work directly for Amazon, and forced to pay unlawful fees to obtain employment, the Amnesty report said. While they worked at Amazon warehouses, the workers were housed in accommodations that were "overcrowded and dirty, infested with bed bugs and lacking even the most basic facilities," Amnesty wrote. In some cases, the agencies prevented employees from changing jobs or leaving Saudi Arabia unless they paid hefty fines, which they often couldn't afford without taking out burdensome loans.

The abuses suffered by workers were so severe that they likely amounted to "human trafficking for the purpose of labor exploitation as defined by international law and standards," Amnesty wrote in the October report.

Amazon said it became aware of the issues before reports from groups like Amnesty. The company said Verité interviewed employees at of one of its temporary labor vendors,