JAKARTA - Global corporations were linked to 747 documented cases of alleged abuse of migrant workers in 2025, with US-headquartered companies responsible by a substantial margin, according to the Business and Human Rights Centre's annual analysis covering the full calendar year.

The report, titled "Abuse Without Borders: Migrant Workers' Rights Global Analysis 2026," draws on the centre's Migrant Worker Allegations Database and was released with a foreword by Professor Pichamon Yeophantong of the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights. 

It identified almost 600 companies linked to abuse across nearly all sectors and regions, up from 665 cases and 489 named companies the previous year. US companies were named in cases 267 times, that’s nearly four times more often than the next most frequently cited country of headquarters, the United Kingdom. 

Among individual companies, Meta was linked to the most cases at 12, followed by Adidas, Levi Strauss, LVMH, and VF Corporation at seven cases each.

The most frequently recorded violations were breaches of employment standards and occupational health and safety rules. At least 98 migrant workers died in cases recorded during the year, and in 47 percent of cases workers experienced three or more types of human rights violation simultaneously. 

Compared to the two previous years, workers facing abuse in 2025 more frequently encountered barriers to accessing remedy. The report characterises this trend as evidence of "rising corporate impunity and retaliation for raising complaints."

Seventy percent of cases occurred in the Global North or in the value chains of Global North-headquartered companies, which accounted for 80 percent of cases where company headquarters were reported. In 95 percent of cases where worker origin was reported, those impacted were migrants from the Global South.

The report identifies conflict, the climate emergency, and hostile migration policies as accelerating factors. Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the war in Gaza, and civil war in Myanmar reshaped migration corridors and generated new harms, including cases of migrants being trafficked to work in weapons manufacturing. 

The centre also documented migrants from nearly 30 countries being trafficked to build weapons for the Russian military. The green energy transition is also generating new risks, the centre has documented separately, with migrant workers on renewable energy projects across the Gulf subjected to abuse through complex subcontracting chains that obscure accountability.

"Just transitions cannot be built on migrant abuse," the report states.