Immigration Barristers' Blog

The government's announcement that it will be changing the rules for migrant domestic workers, including the removal of the right to change employer, will facilitate slavery and trafficking, say human rights charities Kalayaan and Anti-Slavery International. 

Migrant domestic workers are vulnerable to horrific abuse and exploitation as has come to light in a number of recent high profile cases in the criminal courts.

The changes would mean that any domestic workers able to escape abuse will immediately lose their right to reside in the UK, therefore greatly reduce the likelihood that they would seek help from the authorities for fear of being deported.

This policy would lead to the victims becoming ‘illegal’ and perpetrators going unpunished. Campaigners believe that the removal of the legal right to escape an abusive situation would result in domestic workers, desperate to earn money for the survival of themselves and their families, going underground, creating an underclass of unprotected and undocumented workers not protected under UK labour laws.

Audrey Guichon, Domestic Work Programme Co-ordinator, Anti-Slavery International, said: “By tying domestic workers to one employer the Government will effectively be licensing slavery, allowing employers to bring workers to the UK without providing those same workers any way of challenging or escaping abuse if it occurs. These proposed changes would give unscrupulous bosses the power to threaten workers with deportation if they do not comply with whatever they demand.”

In a recent report, the Home Affairs Committee has criticised the UK Border Agency's management of the processes for the enforced removal of those who are being deported from the UK.

The inquiry, launched following the death of Jimmy Mubenga on a deportation flight from the UK, found that although there were some positive aspects of the process, which is carried out on the UK Border Agency's behalf by a private security contractor, (initially G4S and, since 1 May 2011, Reliance Security) the Committee found evidence of:

• Inappropriate use of physical restraint, and the possible use of unauthorised and potentially dangerous restraint techniques.
• Weaknesses in passing on information about detainees’ medical conditions to all the relevant staff.
• Use of racist language by contractors.
• Use of excessive numbers of contactor staff.

The Committee recommends that the UK Border Agency should strengthen its procedures so that its own staff feel that they are entitled and expected to challenge any poor conduct on the part of contractors.

The Committee also rejects the practice of taking detainees to the airport as "reserves" in case another detainee is taken off a removal flight at the last minute.

To strengthen safeguards against the ill treatment of prisoners, the Committee recommends that members of the Independent Monitoring Boards for immigration removal centres—or a similar independent monitoring network—be given access to chartered removal flights.

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