Introduction

Equidem is a human and labour rights not-for-profit working globally to promote the rights of marginalised communities, accountability for serious violations, and building the human rights movement. Our team of worker activists, investigators and policy experts expose injustice, provide solutions for the most intractable human rights challenges and work closely with other grassroots and global civil society to empower the individual and the community.

This submission speaks to heat stress among delivery service workers in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) who experience heat stress in a context of other serious human and labour rights abuses, including forced labour conditions, that heighten risk of heat stress and prevent workers from taking measures to protect their health and safety.  Compounding these risks, many of these workers are also climate impacted migrants from Africa and Asia. It is based upon an in-depth investigation conducted by Equidem into the human and labour rights of delivery service workers employed in the UAE, including the perspectives of 43 migrant workers interviewed between February and November 2023 and 28 April and June 2024. Our data and analysis relate to the experience of workers travelling from Asia and Africa to the UAE. However, our submission has broader relevance with regard to the intersections between worker rights, climate change and the right to information.

The submission argues that the UAE and domicile countries of lead firms must hold businesses engaged in the platform-based delivery sector accountable for human and labour rights impacts on climate impacted and other migrant workers they employ. Part I and II document extreme heat stress facing delivery sector workers in the UAE. That heat stress takes place in a context of other serious human and labour rights abuses, including forced labour conditions, that heighten exposure to heat stress. Part III explains that climate displaced migrants employed in delivery services, within the UAE and elsewhere are doubly impacted by the global climate crisis- they migrate in response to climate impacts and find employment in a sector with high exposure to heat stress. Part III argues that these rights violations remain largely unreported and unseen because information on labour and human rights violations in the digital-platform based delivery sector are particularly challenging to access. On the basis of this information, the submission concludes that access to information on how digital-platform based employment presents risks of heat stress and other occupational safety hazards is critical to mitigating these conditions by informing worker choices and urgent business and state responses to address these risks. It concludes with recommendations for the UAE and business actors engaged in the platform-based delivery services sector.

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