Meera Stephen came to Britain with a big suitcase and even bigger dreams.
The 27-year-old had left Kerala in South India to work at a care home in Manchester, one of thousands of migrant workers to come after a government recruitment drive to fill more than 100,000 vacancies in social care.
The job would pay £10 (US$12, 22) an hour – just above the minimum wage. But it came at a price. In exchange for securing her employment, she would pay a recruitment agent 1.3m rupees – about £13,700.
Stephen, whose name has been changed to protect her, is one of a growing number of migrant workers being charged to work in Britain’s care sector.
Requiring workers to pay recruitment fees for finding or trying to find them jobs is illegal in the UK and breaches international labor standards.
John Ncube, who came to Britain from Zimbabwe earlier this year, said he had been forced to borrow money from relatives to cover the cost of a £2,000 (US$2,445) “administration fee” for finding his job, with £250 (US$305) a month deducted from his salary.
After rent, bills, food and other expenses – including a fee to hire a company car – he is left with “nothing”, despite working overtime. John, whose name has been changed to protect him, cannot leave his role because of a repayment clause that says he must pay almost £4,000 if he quits within two years.
“Many people back home do not realise recruitment fees are illegal because they are so common. Even if they did, many would come anyway. That’s the most heartbreaking thing. The agents and employers see their desperation,” he said.
The findings raise urgent concerns about modern slavery in Britain and come amid a worsening social care staffing crisis, with vacancy rates in England reaching 10%, according to the charity Skills for Care.
In February, the government added care workers to the shortage occupation list, relaxing the requirements for them to come to Britain provided they are sponsored by an employer.
Announcing the scheme, home secretary Priti Patel said it would “help alleviate” the pressures by attracting thousands of international care workers. But four months on, the evidence suggests the route is being widely exploited by rogue recruiters.
Unseen UK, the charity which runs the national modern slavery helpline, said it saw 78 potential victims of modern slavery and labour exploitation in the care sector in 2021, double the 2020 figure.
In another case identified by the charity Kanlungan, which supports Filipino migrants, a husband and wife came with their son after being offered employment as physiotherapists.
On arrival they realised they were being made to do care work instead, being deployed to private households across the south-east. They spent months being moved around, earning below minimum wage with little time off, and were allegedly told by their employers: “If you don’t work we’ll make you homeless tomorrow and report you to the Home Office.”
The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority, sponsored by the Home Office, has become increasingly concerned about care sector abuses in recent months, with raids resulting in arrests of suspects for modern slavery-related offences.
To tackle the problems, experts and campaigners are calling for greater oversight of the care sector and an overhaul of the Home Office visa sponsorship system.
Some have called for jobs to be advertised on a government portal to make it easier for candidates to apply directly, cutting out agents and other middlemen.
There are also calls for care to become a GLAA-licensed sector, like agriculture. This would mean all recruitment agents, both inside and outside the UK, would need a licence to supply workers, with conditions stipulating they “must not charge a fee to a worker for any work finding services” and the agency able to inspect applicants and investigate concerns.
Neill Wilkins, head of the migrant workers’ programme at the Institute for Human Rights and Business, said recruitment fees were trapping workers in conditions akin to modern-day slavery and called for urgent action to tackle the abuses.
“People have this view of modern slavery where they think of chains and incarceration,” he said. “But it’s not like that at all. The chains that bind people these days are nearly always financial.”-The Observer
