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Non-Oil GDP Share: 55% 2025 real GDP |Saudi Unemployment: 7.2% Q4 2025 |PIF AUM: $925B 2025 approx. |FDI Share of GDP: 2.8% 2025 latest |Female Participation: 35.0% 2025 latest |Credit Rating: Aa3/A+/A+ Moody's/Fitch/S&P |GDP Growth: 4.5% 2025 actual |Umrah Pilgrims: 18M+ 2025 foreign |Non-Oil GDP Share: 55% 2025 real GDP |Saudi Unemployment: 7.2% Q4 2025 |PIF AUM: $925B 2025 approx. |FDI Share of GDP: 2.8% 2025 latest |Female Participation: 35.0% 2025 latest |Credit Rating: Aa3/A+/A+ Moody's/Fitch/S&P |GDP Growth: 4.5% 2025 actual |Umrah Pilgrims: 18M+ 2025 foreign |

Kafala

21,000 Dead: The Worker Death Toll Behind Saudi Vision 2030

21,000 workers from India, Bangladesh, and Nepal dead since 2017. 100,000 missing. 80% of deaths classified as 'natural causes' without autopsy. The forensic account of the labour catastrophe behind Saudi Arabia's national transformation.

Updated Apr 18, 2026

The Human Ledger: Death Sentences, Disappeared Workers, and the True Cost of Building NEOM

21,000 workers dead. Death sentences for refusing eviction. 100,000 labourers missing. The forensic account of what NEOM cost the people who built it and the people who lived where it was built.

Updated Apr 18, 2026

The Kafala Machine: How Saudi Arabia's Sponsorship System Powers Vision 2030 with Trapped Labour

Workers pay thousands in recruitment fees to reach Saudi Arabia, then can't leave their employer without permission. The kafala system creates the conditions for every abuse documented at NEOM. Here's how the machine works.

Updated Apr 18, 2026

The Blood Price: 21,000 Dead Workers and the Moral Ledger of Vision 2030

An estimated 21,000 migrant workers have died on Vision 2030 projects since 2017. The kafala system, Western complicity, and FIFA 2034 reckoning.

Updated Apr 18, 2026