Campaigners call to reverse tied visa system

Campaigning groups have called on the government to use the Modern Slavery Bill (see item above left) to reverse a policy change made by the coalition in 2012 which has significantly increased the vulnerability of domestic migrant workers to employer abuse.

Since April 2012, domestic migrant workers who are lawfully in the UK are banned from changing their employer. In other words, their right to remain in the UK legally is effectively tied to the whim of their employer.

Domestic workers’ charity Kalayaan says the tied visa system has directly facilitated the abuse of migrant workers.

In 2014, the Joint Committee on the Modern Slavery Bill blamed this policy change for having “unintentionally strengthened the hand of the slave master against the victim of slavery”, adding that “tying migrant domestic workers to their employer institutionalises their abuse”.

As Labour Research went to press, Kalayaan was pressing for an amendment to the Bill to allow migrant domestic workers to change their employer and to renew their domestic workers’ visa for up to 12 months at a time.

The Human Rights Watch organisation has published an important report, Hidden away: abuses against migrant domestic workers, that produces evidence showing how the change in policy has directly undermined Britain’s international treaty obligations to protect migrant domestic workers.

www.kalayaan.org.uk

www.hrw.org/reports/2014/03/31/hidden-away-0