Give abused migrant employees new visa to remain within the UK, house secretary urged | EUROtoday
Migrant well being care employees and fruit pickers who’ve been exploited by rogue employers must be given the best to a alternative visa, legal professionals and charities have warned.
Over 100 legal professionals and rights organisations have warned the house secretary that the UK’s migrant employee visa schemes are prone to breaching worldwide human rights obligations.
Migrants who come to the UK on the well being and care employee visa and the expert employee scheme proceed to be exploited and abused by some employers. Workers typically get into excessive ranges of debt with a view to pay middlemen who assist them get jobs by means of the federal government’s seasonal employee scheme for fruit pickers.
In a letter despatched on Thursday, solicitors and others have written to Yvette Cooper to precise “serious concerns” concerning the therapy of migrant employees arriving within the UK on sponsored visas.
They say overseas employees are being deceived concerning the work they may do within the UK, are having their motion restricted by employers, and are experiencing bodily and sexual violence as soon as they arrive.
In some circumstances, rogue employers are holding on to their passports and different id paperwork, withholding wages, or forcing them to work extreme extra time.
Lawyers say they’ve represented a whole lot of people that have been saddled with “life-altering levels of debt in their countries of origin to obtain an offer of employment in the UK”.
On arriving within the UK, affected migrants realise they’ve been scammed and the work they have been promised doesn’t exist. They are then left destitute within the UK unable to entry monetary assist and infrequently resorting to the black market with a view to survive.
Workers on this place are at present given a 60-day grace interval to seek out one other sponsor, change to a special visa or depart the nation.
In a bid to crack down on rogue sponsors, the federal government revoked greater than 470 sponsorship licences from employers between July 2022 and December 2024. However this has left greater than 39,000 employees with out employment.
In the letter, solicitors, regulation centres, migrants rights organisations and lecturers name on the Home Office to supply a short lived work visa for these migrants who’ve suffered exploitation, in order that they don’t develop into destitute.
The suggest {that a} new ‘workplace justice’ visa be created to present employees the best to stay within the UK and search employment for so long as their unique visa.
They are additionally pushing for an extension to the 60-day grace interval given to exploited migrant employees to discover a new work sponsor if their unique one is banned. They argue that an extension to 6 months can be extra according to different nations and would give all migrant employees a extra cheap timeframe to seek out one other job, make one other immigration utility, or depart the UK.
They warn that the federal government is “at risk of breaching the UK’s international human rights obligations”, specifically article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) which supplies states an obligation to guard in opposition to exploitation and trafficking.
Under article three of the ECHR, persons are additionally shielded from torture, and inhuman and degrading therapy.
Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of the Work Rights Centre, mentioned: “We are watching a crisis of migrant worker exploitation unfold as thousands of people are trapped in situations of overwork, abuse or destitution.
“Unless this government takes action, we will look back on this as a national scandal, ashamed that it was allowed to carry on for so long.”
Zoe Bantleman, authorized director on the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, mentioned: “Unlike their British colleagues, the migrant worker cannot live in the UK without their employer sponsoring them. If the Home Office clamps down on their employer, unless they can somehow manage to find a new sponsor, the migrant worker loses their visa, their livelihood, and the life they have built in the UK.
“In a sponsorship system such as this, there must be safeguards to rebalance this asymmetry of power and ensure migrant workers can report violations and seek enforcement of their employment and human rights.”
The variety of folks coming to the UK on well being and social care employee visas has been declining after new migration guidelines have been launched in January 2024.
These guidelines embody a ban on abroad care employees bringing household dependants and an increase within the wage threshold for expert employees to £38,700.
The Home Office has been contacted for remark.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/migrant-health-care-worker-visa-scheme-b2737907.html