Thousands of migrant workers are at risk of exploitation because of multiple failures in the government scheme that allows them to come to the UK, a report has found.
The way the Home Office has set up the employer sponsorship system to replace freedom of movement after Brexit has prioritised immigration control over workers’ rights, according to the report, Systematic Drivers of Migrant Worker Exploitation in the UK, from the Work Rights Centre.
It analysed 40 cases of migrant workers at risk of exploitation, along with documents connected with their cases. According to the latest government figures in the year ending June 2023, 321,000 work visas were granted, a 45% increase on the previous year.
“The exploitation of migrant workers is not coincidental but the outcome of a system, an inadequate and increasingly hostile national policy environment,” the report said.
Some workers are scammed in their home countries by agents who charge them tens of thousands of pounds to organise their visas to the UK and secure an employer sponsor to give them a job. They can find themselves in a catch-22 situation where they pay a vast sum of money for a visa and a job package but when the promised job fails to materialise they are fearful of reporting the employer to officials in case the employer’s sponsorship registration is cancelled by the Home Office – leading to their visa being voided. Some, therefore, feel they have no alternative but to accept being exploited or to take on risky and precarious cash-in-hand jobs.
One Indian nurse is currently stranded in the UK with her partner and young child after paying £20,000 to an agent in her home country. The agent promised to secure a UK work visa for her and find her secure employment here.
She used a combination of savings and money borrowed from family members to pay the agent’s fees and felt hopeful for a bright future for herself and her family in the UK.
On arrival here her sponsor employer told her there was no work for her. Unless she can find another sponsor employer within 60 days she and her family will be deported with debts to pay off for the loan they paid to cover the cost of the visa.
“I was given a dismissal letter because the employer said I was not talking to them in a good way,” she said. “I was simply asking when I could start work. The situation is so stressful and I feel completely hopeless and cheated. I know there are hundreds of people in the same situation.
“I can’t sleep at night because I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Coming here to work but then not getting the job we were promised feels like mental harassment.”
The report authors recommend reforming the system to end migrant worker dependency on a sponsor, introducing a single enforcement body that migrant workers can safely report abuse and exploitation to, and appointing a migrant commissioner to develop a welfare strategy for migrant workers.
Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, chief executive of the Work Rights Centre, said: “From the perspective of migrant workers, sponsorship is akin to bonded labour. It hands employers the power to exploit migrants, knowing that it will be very hard for them to leave. We have seen many tragic cases where people come to accept exploitation. The work-sponsorship system needs urgent reform to prevent even more migrant workers being exploited.”
The Home Office has been approached for comment.
