Bosses use short-term visas to exploit migrant workers

Some migrant care workers are being paid less than £5 an hour while domestic workers brought to the UK by rich employees are barely paid at all, new research looking at exploitation of visa routes has found.

- HOLLY BANCROFT

Academics studying exploitation in the UK have found that short-term visa routes for social care workers and domestic workers “create conditions which enable exploitation of workers” and put them at risk of modern slavery.

It comes after an investigation by the Bureau of Investigation Journalism and The Independent uncovered evidence last year that agricultural workers who came to the UK were publicly humiliated, not paid for all the hours they worked, and forced to live in substandard conditions.

Researchers conducted interviews with 15 migrant care workers from the Philippines, and a number of African countries, who had been employed in the UK. They found that five had overstayed their initial care worker visa and were now employed in exploitative conditions on next to no pay. Two were being paid less than £5 per hour to do care work and one was only paid around £3 an hour, with her employer deducting an accommodation fee from that.