Labour rights at the centre: Bangladeshi migrant workers and the 2034 FIFA World Cup in Saudi Arabia
Ahead of the 2034 FIFA World Cup, both Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia must curb the exploitation of migrant workers and ensure their human rights
In 2022, an average of four Bangladeshi migrant workers died every day in Saudi Arabia, according to an investigation by 'The Guardian'. As of 2024, both Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia are yet to ratify various crucial international conventions on migrant rights, labour rights, and human rights.
With weak labour protections and poor enforcement of existing laws, the 2034 FIFA World Cup in Saudi Arabia poses potentially grave implications for Bangladeshi migrant workers unless decisive action and concrete steps are taken to prevent the kind of exploitation and deaths that frequently characterise the experiences of Bangladeshi workers in the Gulf region.
2034 FIFA World Cup in Saudi Arabia: A rigged match?
The announcement that Saudi Arabia will host the 2034 FIFA World Cup has sparked widespread criticism, particularly given FIFA's controversial decision to hold the 2030 tournament across three continents.
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While most of the 2030 World Cup matches will be hosted by Spain, Portugal, and Morocco (Europe and North Africa), the opening matches have been set to take place in Uruguay, Argentina, and Paraguay (South America) to commemorate the tournament's Centenary.
This unprecedented move has effectively disqualified any South American nation from bidding for the 2034 event, as FIFA's rules prohibit consecutive hosting rights within the same region. By narrowing the pool to Asia and Oceania, FIFA created a pathway for Saudi Arabia's unopposed bid for 2034, a move which critics argue was strategically engineered, raising even more questions about the political manoeuvring behind these decisions.
For Saudi Arabia, hosting the 2034 FIFA World Cup is not just a matter of prestige but an opportunity to advance its ambitious Vision 2030 goals which include massive infrastructure projects and economic modernisation. Given that approximately 75 percent of Saudi Arabia's workforce is comprised of migrant workers, it is highly likely that the demand for large-scale stadiums, transport networks, and other mega-infrastructure projects related to the World Cup will need to be met predominantly through the labour of migrant workers.
However, migrant workers in the Gulf region, particularly those in the construction industry, often face hazardous conditions, wage theft, and death written off as 'due to natural causes' with limited accountability on the part of employers. Despite these conditions, FIFA's evaluation report on Saudi Arabia's bid rated the human rights risk assessment as "medium" based on the "substantial efforts that went into preparing the human rights-related submissions of the bid" and "concrete commitments made by the bid and all local stakeholders". Saudi Arabia has also been awarded an overall score of 4.2 on a scale of 5 in FIFA's bid evaluation, the highest in the history of the mega sport event.
Bangladeshi migrant workers: Key players in the game
Bangladeshi migrant workers have long been integral to the construction industry in Saudi Arabia, and they are expected to play a critical role in meeting the labour demands associated with the 2034 FIFA World Cup given the historical patterns of migration from Bangladesh to the Gulf nation.
Over the past few years, Saudi Arabia has emerged as the top receiving state for Bangladeshi migrant workers. In 2023, around 4.9 lakh Bangladeshi workers migrated to Saudi Arabia. By November 2024, the number rose to 5.4 lakh, accounting for more than 50 percent of overseas employment of Bangladeshi workers this year. Additionally, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Bangladesh has consistently been one of the top remittance-receiving countries globally since 2010. In 2023, total remittance inflows to Bangladesh amounted to a record-breaking $21.94 billion, with nearly a quarter of this figure coming from Saudi Arabia alone. This highlights the critical economic role that migrant workers play in strengthening the country's foreign exchange reserves.
As the preparations for the 2034 World Cup unfold, both FIFA and the hosting nation of Saudi Arabia must ensure that labour standards are adhered to, and that the rights of migrant workers are not sacrificed for the sake of the event. In addition, as a major migrant-sending state, Bangladesh also bears responsibility in protecting its workers. Despite their vital economic contributions, workers face significant barriers even before departure from Bangladesh, particularly during the recruitment process
However, poor work and residency conditions have instituted a highly precarious form of employment for Bangladeshi migrant workers. Even with various labour reforms in Saudi Arabia, the law still fails to adequately improve conditions for them due to the deeply embedded exploitative relationship between vulnerable workers and their employers. Despite reforms allowing some workers to change employers and restricting the confiscation of passports, these measures are not consistently enforced, and many migrant workers continue to be bound to exploitative employers. Malpractices such as unpaid wages, passport confiscation, unsafe work and living conditions, and denial of labour rights remain worryingly commonplace.
As the preparations for the 2034 World Cup unfold, both FIFA and the hosting nation of Saudi Arabia must ensure that labour standards are adhered to, and that the rights of migrant workers are not sacrificed for the sake of the event. In addition, as a major migrant-sending state, Bangladesh also bears responsibility in protecting its workers. Despite their vital economic contributions, workers face significant barriers even before departure from Bangladesh, particularly during the recruitment process.
Pre-departure Exploitation: Foul play in migrant recruitment practices
One significant source of migrant precarity is associated with the requirement for workers to pay exorbitant recruitment fees for working overseas. Bangladeshi migrant workers are among the highest payers of recruitment fees worldwide. They often need to borrow from friends and family, thereby facing high indebtedness even prior to their departure.
Further, so-called 'low-skilled' workers – those who are already among the most vulnerable – typically pay the highest recruitment fees. As per the Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics (BSS), workers leaving for Saudi Arabia paid an average of Tk4.1 lakh (approximately $3,465 at current rates) in recruitment fees while earning only Tk32 thousand (270 USD) per month on average. It would therefore take workers over a year just to recover the cost of recruitment – and this is assuming that all earnings are dedicated towards the goal of recruitment cost recovery, and more importantly, that the monthly wages owed are indeed paid properly.
Crucially, Saudi Arabia's labour law prohibits the charging of recruitment fees to migrant workers. However, Bangladesh currently imposes no such restrictions. While, in theory, there is a recruitment fee cap set by the Bangladeshi government at Tk1.6 lakh (1,380 USD) for workers migrating to Saudi Arabia, the aforementioned figure shows that the real recruitment cost in practice is nearly threefold this amount. The gap between legislation and implementation thereby allows recruitment agencies and brokers to continue charging extortionate fees to aspiring but vulnerable migrant workers.
Recognising that recruitment fees are a key source of precarity and exploitative conditions, it is up to Bangladesh to take on the responsibility of ensuring that such fees are eliminated. One can take the bilateral agreement between Nepal and Jordan as an example, which stipulates that the employer is responsible for covering the cost of recruitment. Thus, both the migrant-receiving and the migrant-sending state are liable for ensuring that the fees are not passed on to the workers.
Post-departure inadequacies: No assists from Labour Attachés
The Government of Bangladesh has established Labour Attachés across some migrant-receiving countries to provide guidance and services to labour migrants in case of exploitation or abuse. However, inadequate resources, limited personnel, and general inefficiency lead to ineffective assistance for migrants. Further, interviews with migrant workers in the Gulf have revealed that Labour Attaché officials are often dismissive of workers' complaints. Many workers report feeling unsupported or ignored, which only exacerbates their vulnerability in exploitative conditions.
A significant responsibility of the Government therefore is to improve the functionality of the existing Labour Attachés and build better communication channels between the Attachés and migrant workers to ensure that they can seek necessary support. In the case of Saudi Arabia, this task is important not just in light of the 2034 World Cup, but also due to the high number of Bangladeshi domestic workers, mostly women, who are highly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.
Lessons from the past: A need to centre labour rights and safety
Following the increased labour demand that will accompany Saudi Arabia's winning bid to host the 2034 FIFA World Cup, the outflow of migrant workers from Bangladesh is expected to increase tremendously over the next decade, particularly in the construction sector. Prioritising migrant rights is long overdue, but the announcement of the 2034 World Cup in Saudi Arabia makes it even more imperative that the Government of Bangladesh takes concrete action to prevent exploitation of workers from the side of the migrant-sending country. This entails not merely token reforms to laws, but rather the proper implementation of these laws, international labour standards, and ethical recruitment practices that serve to reduce migrant precarity.
The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar serves as a cautionary tale in this regard for the 2034 Saudi Arabia World Cup. The severely circumscribed rights and mobility prescribed to migrant labour led to highly precarious conditions and exploitation, and even deaths of thousands of migrant workers involved in the preparation of this event. Further, the dearth of action from Bangladesh as a migrant-sending country meant that workers continued to fall prey to unethical recruitment practices within Bangladesh, falsified contracts, and extremely high recruitment fees.
Such practices were not unique to those employed for World Cup 2022 projects alone. Indeed, these conditions have persisted historically in Bangladeshi workers' migration trajectories, making it an even more imperative task for the Government of Bangladesh to address underlying structural issues in relation to the precarity of migrant workers.
The Government should urgently undertake the responsibility of mitigating unethical recruitment practices and the exploitation and financial burden faced by migrant workers, ensuring their safety and fair treatment.
As evidenced by the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, legal reforms in and of themselves are insufficient tools for ensuring labour rights if not accompanied by a plan for adequate implementation.
This is particularly relevant given that the central migration law in Bangladesh, the Overseas Employment and Migrants Act 2013, was amended last year to introduce some improvements towards protecting migrant rights.
Whether or not the amendment makes a substantial impact in improving the conditions of migrant workers remains to be seen. Such an impact can only occur if the rights of migrant workers are centred in recruitment and migration processes, and not overshadowed by remittance-seeking and other macroeconomic objectives.
Both proactive and reactive measures should be taken throughout the following decade of build-up to the 2034 FIFA World Cup in Saudi Arabia – and beyond – to prevent history repeating itself.
Sanjana Prachee Rahman is a Political Science PhD Student at York University in Canada
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions and views of The Business Standard.
