We are piloting a new GMCA-funded grants programme for people on care worker visas facing destitution. There are likely hundreds of people in our city region in this situation - who came to the UK in good faith to work in the health and social care sector, in some cases selling everything to fund their move. But, in a scandal that has unfolded largely unseen in the last few years, many are unable to work. This is because the company that sponsored their visa, promising full-time work, often either doesn’t exist, or has failed to give sustainable working hours and safe, healthy working conditions. It is a condition of these visas that people work for their sponsor, and they can only take 20 hours’ other employment. Some have seen their sponsors have their license revoked. Some are being forced into silence about their experiences of mistreatment including abuse and exploitation through threat of dismissal, visa cancellation, and the repercussions of this. This situation, which has arisen thanks to the breath-taking carelessness of Home Office systems, has left people destitute and at risk of exploitation – as well as at risk of losing their leave to remain in the UK.
Our grants programme will help mitigate some of the effects of destitution, and, we hope, help provide the headspace and resource to move on from destitution. As part of the GM pathway for care workers, we’ll be signposting grant recipients wherever possible for additional support – especially employment advice to get people back into the work they came to the UK for.
Ultimately though – as with MDF’s main grants programme – we shouldn’t have to be doing this work. People who come to the UK to work should be free to do so and be treated with dignity and respect, without having their visa tied to a specific sponsor, which puts them at risk of exploitation. And the harms caused by the Home Office’s failure to perform basic due diligence of sponsor organisations needs to be recognised by the government, with people who have often lost everything offered full reparation.
To read more about the care worker visa scandal, see:
Visa system forces care workers to stay silent on rape and… | TBIJ
Migrant care workers: how to stand up to exploitation | Work Rights Centre