Migrant workers at greater risk of modern slavery after

Brexit, research finds

Emily Dugan, The Guardian

Mon 1 Apr 2024 06.00 CEST

Visas created hastily to solve labour shortages as a result of Brexit have put
workers at greater risk of modern slavery and exploitation, research has found.

Strict conditions on agricultural and care visas created after Britain left the EU
expose workers to “hyper-precarity” and increase their vulnerability to
exploitation, a study by a coalition of leading universities and charities has
concluded. Since Brexit, farm workers and care home workers have had a route to
Britain on time-limited visas with stringent conditions.

Workers on the schemes faced significant issues of debt and deductions from
wages because of illegal recruitment fees as well as costs incurred from travel,
training, accommodation and high visa charges, researchers found. They also
described deception by intermediaries, who misled workers about the conditions
and length of employment they could expect.

Migrant workers’ vulnerability to exploitation was compounded by the hostile

environment as fears of immigration enforcement action deterred them from
reporting mistreatment or exploitation to the authorities, researchers found. The
risks were increased by the fact that government agencies charged with enforcing
employment rights were underfunded and did not have capacity to audit
workplaces proactively, the study said.

Dr Inga Thiemann at the University of Leicester, who led the research team, said
there was a high risk of “labour exploitation and debt bondage” under both visas.
She said Brexit had made workers more vulnerable because those coming from
Europe had previously “had the possibility to make complaints and to talk about
labour exploitation because they wouldn’t risk their status automatically if their
employer revoked the sponsorship”.

Thiemann added: “What we see a lot of in the care sector is that people aren’t
willing to come forward even if they are experiencing severe labour abuse because
they are not sure that they can find another sponsor within the timeframe that
the Home Office gives them to do so. So they’re more afraid of losing their job and
having to go back home and having all this debt they have incurred than they are of
continuing with the exploitation they are experiencing.”
She said it needed to be easier for workers to change employers, so that moving
jobs was “an actual possibility”, adding: “It cannot stay in this hypothetical state
because otherwise workers are just too vulnerable.”

One man who came to Britain from the Philippines under a care worker visa in
2022 said he often had to work 12-hour shifts without breaks looking after
residents with dementia for minimum wage. The man, 30, who previously worked
as a teacher, said he paid more than £3,000 for flights for him and his wife to come
at less than two weeks’ notice and was still paying his sister back for the flight.

He told the Guardian: “Everything just goes on whatever you’re paying for and
nothing is left. I tried my luck here but right now I have more debt than before and
I’ve been here a year and a half.”

He said he was also being charged almost £300 a month in unclear fees from the
agents who brought him to Britain. “They say it’s for processing of our visas, but
in my opinion they’re trying to get money from us,” he said.

He had been expecting accommodation to be included with the job but had to rent
a room in a shared house with his wife and new baby, which uses up most of his
income. “I came here to give my family a good chance of living and provide for
them and it’s a scary feeling to be in this spot.

“Some of my colleagues had to pay job-finding fees of thousands of pounds to get

here … I’m continuously looking for another job. My colleagues even sold land
and cars back home just to come here. I need to be strong for my kid and my wife
but it’s very stressful.”

Care worker visas have also come under criticism from the former chief inspector
of borders and immigration, whose inspection of immigration in the care
sector was published this week. In his foreword, David Neal wrote that the Home
Office had used a visa model based on one for highly skilled workers sponsored by
multinationals and “applied it to a high-risk area – migration into an atomised and
poorly paid sector”.

Neal noted: “Its control measures to mitigate the risk were totally inadequate.
There is just one compliance officer for every 1,600 employers licensed to sponsor
migrant workers.”

The seasonal worker visa has faced similar criticism and was rolled out before a
pilot of the plan was reviewed. The report noted that the Home Office continued to
expand the scheme despite strong evidence of worker exploitation and
mistreatment.

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