UAE: Alleged mass deportations of Pakistani Shia Muslim workers raises concerns of religious profiling, wage theft & economic dispossession; incl. co. response
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Equidem spoke with nine migrant workers who had returned to Pakistan and other countries after being deported from the UAE. Their accounts raise serious allegations of arbitrary detention, torture or ill-treatment, denial of due process, and deportation without meaningful explanation.Equidem, "United Arab Emirates: Protect Migrant Workers from Religious Profiling, Arbitrary Detention, and Deportation"
In June 2026, the human rights organisation Equidem published a statement calling for the protection of migrant workers from religious profiling, arbitrary detention, and deportation in United Arab Emirates (UAE), following reports of the alleged "mass detention and deportation of thousands of migrant workers" who are predominantly from religious minority communities.
Equidem interviewed nine Shia Muslim Pakistani nationals who had allegedly been detained and deported. Some of the workers were employed by, or in the supply chains of, multinational companies. Amazon Delivery and Safari Tourism were named as employers of interviewed workers, and the article alleges Amazon Delivery instructed its migrant employee to report to the police station, where he was arrested.
Workers allege they are now unable to recover "wages and entitlements" owed to them, including a migrant employed by Amazon Delivery. Equidem says this evidences how deportation stops workers from being able to seek payment, accountability and remedy for abuse.
All interviewees said they had been identified through Emirates ID cards that were scanned when they attended a Shia mosque, raising concerns regarding the use of systematic identity data collection at places of worship to detain and deport individuals based on their religious identity.
Equidem argues the mass deportations are a crisis of "state responsibility, corporate accountability, and labour rights".
Arbitrary detention and deportation deepen an already unequal system of labour control, cutting workers off from wages, legal processes, and the limited pathways to remedy that may have been available to them.Equidem, "United Arab Emirates: Protect Migrant Workers from Religious Profiling, Arbitrary Detention, and Deportation"
Equidem makes several calls to action, including calls for companies to "identify whether workers in their operations or supply chains have been detained, deported, or otherwise affectes" and "ensure that all outstanding wages, benefits, and end of-service payments are paid in full, and that workers’ documents, belongings, and savings are returned". The human rights group also calls on companies to provide "remedy where workers were abandoned, harmed, or left without income, including in cases involving subcontracted workers".
Following the publication of the briefing, The Coalition on Labor Justice for Migrants in the Gulf released a statement calling on the UAE government to "halt all arbitrary, discriminatory, and unlawful detention and deportation of migrant workers", and urged the governments of migrant worker countries of origin to protect deported nationals.
In July 2026, Business & Human Rights Centre invited Amazon to respond. Amazon's response can be found below. BHRC was not able to contact Safari Tourism to invite a response to the allegations as a website presence and contact details could not be found; if a response is received in the future, this page will be updated accordingly.