UK Government plans leave migrant domestics at risk of slavery

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22 August 2007

Migrant domestic workers’ vulnerability to exploitation and slavery — including human trafficking — will be greatly increased under UK Government’s proposed changes to the migration system.

On 23 August, International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, Anti-Slavery International is calling on the Government to think again and maintain migrant domestic workers’ rights to renewable visas and to change employers if they wish.

Proposed changes to the domestic worker visa include restricting their stay to a maximum of six months and removing their right to change employers, even if they are being subjected to abuse, leaving all migrant domestic workers in the UK and new arrivals vulnerable to exploitation and slavery.

“The trafficking and exploitation of migrant domestic workers in the UK is already a significant problem. In 1998, the Government took steps to protect these workers. The current proposals would set us back 10 years and increase the number of migrant domestics subjected to forced labour,” Aidan McQuade Director of Anti-Slavery International said.

According to research by Kalayaan, which supports migrant domestic workers in the UK, of 387 migrant domestic workers who reported abuse in a year, 86 per cent of migrant domestic workers are made to work more than 16 hours a day, 70 per cent reported psychological abuse, 27 per cent were kept locked in and 32 per cent have their passports held so they cannot escape.

 

NOTES TO EDITORS:

  • Anti-Slavery International is supporting Kalayaan’s efforts to challenge the Government’s proposals. In Parliament, Early Day Motion 860 asks for the Government to drop the proposals and retain the current provisions.

 

 

  • Anti-Slavery International is the world’s oldest human rights organisation and campaigns for the eradication of slavery, exposing current cases, supporting local organisations to release the minimum 12.3 million people in slavery, and the implementation of international laws against slavery. For further information please contact Paul Donohoe, Anti-Slavery International’s Press Officer, on 020 7501 8934 or email p.donohoe@antislavery.org