Exploitation Of Migrant Workers Research Articles

Coping with Exploitative Labour Market: A Case of Sri Lankan migrants in Bahrain

This study is a detailed description of the experience of Sri Lankan migrant workers in Bahrain, exploring the labour market exploitation after arriving in Bahrain and coping strategies. These migrants’ labour market experiences show contrasting and negative experiences after arriving at their destinations. The qualitative research method was utilised, drawing descriptive analysis (thematic analysis technique) of compiling data through semi-structured interviews. Thirty in-depth interviews with Sri Lankan migrant workers, who stayed with their families in Bahrain for more than six months, were conducted using a purposive sampling technique. The study has identified negative experiences of relationships with employers and co-workers in which migrants went through a range of exploitations. The study revealed that the power exercised by employers and co-workers was the prominent cause behind this exploitation. The findings have confirmed that the foremost goal of migration, earning through productive employment, has collapsed due to wage exploitation. Finally, the study highlights acceptance of exploitation as a coping strategy that the migrants had adopted to endure with their exploitative labour market. The information explored on the exploitation of migrant workers in Bahrain enriches the literature with a new sociological and empirical study which provides new evidence about the serious challenges that they had faced.

7.B. Workshop: Labor migration, the food supply chain and the COVID-19 syndemic: Germany, Netherlands, and the USA

Abstract The agriculture and meat-processing sectors employ, largely, (im)migrant workers in Germany, the Netherlands, and the USA. Deemed “critical infrastructure,” workers in the food supply chain (FSC) were particularly vulnerable to SARS-CoV-2 infection due to poor adaptation of policies and practices related to health, immigration, and work. The pandemic has shone a light on preexisting inequalities and risks related to precarious and hazardous work, particularly for (im)migrant workers. We conducted harmonized policy analyses in North-Rhine Westphalia, Germany, in the Netherlands, and in Illinois, USA on measures taken during the pandemic and how they affected migrant workers. These three regions host large businesses in meat-processing and agriculture. They saw significant COVID-19 outbreaks, with widespread health, social and economic repercussions. Public health effects included higher risk for all communities in the region; social effects included local lockdown measures; economic effects included food supply problems, euthanized animals, and financial losses due to the temporary closure of businesses. In our workshop, we will deliver three brief presentations on (im)migration, labor, and occupational safety and health policies during the COVID-19 syndemic in Germany, the Netherlands, and the USA. We present results of our analysis, highlighting similarities and differences between the EU-member states Germany and the Netherlands, on the one hand, and the US, related to the employment and exploitation of migrant workers from the global South/East in the global North/West. We highlight issues to be addressed in future global emergencies. The pandemic has prompted occupational safety and health measures in the FSC. However, agro-industrial sectors in Western Europe and the US heavily rely on precariously employed workers (e.g., seasonal, temporary and/or subcontracted workers). This may impact the extent to which preventive measures “work” for these populations: even when good policies are formulated, information exchange, collaboration, and enforcement by relevant agencies and immigration authorities is critical. Without such cooperation, the realization of stronger social protection of (im)migrant workers is are left to the good will of the employer. Structural drivers in the form of policies related to mobile labor, (im)migration and employment, superimposed on segmented labor markets and discriminatory practices, drove significant morbidity among (im)migrant workers. The following discussion will synthesize insights from the three contexts, and provide an opportunity to brainstorm with workshop participants to facilitate cross-national collaboration on this issue. Key messages • Food supply chain workers are at the intersection of discrimination in health, employment, and migration. • Comparative analysis provides a rich framework to guide management of vulnerable sectors, workers and workplaces during future pandemics.

Restricting emigration for their protection? Exit controls and the protection of (women) migrant workers

Abstract Abuse and exploitation of migrant workers in Gulf States is common and well-documented, and women domestic workers are at special risk. Sending states—often relatively poorer South Asian states—are limited in the ways that they can protect the rights of their citizens when they are labouring abroad. One strategy that sending states have deployed is the adoption of ‘emigration bans’ or ‘emigration conditions’. Emigration bans restrict citizens from taking up temporary labour market contracts, usually in specific states, but sometimes in general. ‘Emigration conditions’ require would-be migrants to meet specific requirements in order to be permitted, by the sending state, to take up a labour market contract abroad. In this article, I examine whether it is morally permissible for source countries to prohibit migration to countries where they risk being exploited or abused. I examine the reasons states give to justify emigration bans and conditions: the ‘structured vulnerability’ reason; the ‘gendered structured vulnerability’ reason; and the ‘gendered paternalism’ reason. Overall, I agree that the reasons motivating the bans and conditions are good ones—though I offer some criticism of the reasons I describe as ‘gendered paternalism’. But, since there is only limited evidence of the effectiveness of bans and conditions in achieving substantive benefit for labour migrants, and on the contrary evidence of the real harm they can sometimes generate, I argue that, absent positive evidence of success in achieving their objectives, they ought to be rejected in practice even if they are permissible in principle.

The 2022 FIFA World Cup, the exploitation of migrant workers, and the role of transnational governing networks

The 2022 FIFA World Cup, the exploitation of migrant workers, and the role of transnational governing networks

Restricting Emigration for Their Protection? Exit Controls and the Protection of (Women) Migrant Workers

Abuse and exploitation of migrant workers in Gulf States is common and well-documented, and women domestic workers are at special risk. Sending states – often relatively poorer South Asian states – are limited in the ways that they can protect the rights of their citizens when they are labouring abroad. One strategy that sending states have deployed is the adoption of “emigration bans” or “emigration conditions.” Emigration bans restrict citizens from taking up temporary labour market contracts, usually in specific states, but sometimes in general. “Emigration conditions” require would-be migrants to meet specific requirements in order to be permitted, by the sending state, to take up a labour market contract abroad. In this article, I examine whether it is morally permissible for source countries to prohibit migration to countries where they risk being exploited or abused. I examine the reasons states give to justify emigration bans and conditions: the “structured vulnerability” reason; the “gendered structured vulnerability” reason; and the “gendered paternalism” reason. Overall, I agree that the reasons motivating the bans and conditions are good ones – though I offer some criticism of the reason I describe as “gendered paternalism”. But, since there is only limited evidence of the effectiveness of bans and conditions in achieving substantive benefit for labour migrants, and on the contrary evidence of the real harm they can sometimes generate, I argue that, absent positive evidence of their success in achieving their objectives, they ought to be rejected in practice even if they are permissible in principle.

The Italian Response to Exploitation of Migrant Workers in the Agricultural Sector: Between Criminalization and Prevention

The Italian Response to Exploitation of Migrant Workers in the Agricultural Sector: Between Criminalization and Prevention

Equal Health Opportunity for Unskilled Migrant Workers within Limited National Healthcare Scheme in Thailand's Context


 
 
 Health is an important indicator of the population in every country, including migrant workers in destination countries, according to the provisions of international laws that govern health services without regard to the legal status of migrants. This article reviewed information from academic papers, research, and interviews with relevant personnel. The objective of this article is to point out information on health systems for migrants from the perspectives of both outsiders and insiders, which include research and data from interviews with the relevant health personnel in Thailand. The study indicated that academic papers published by foreigners see the Thai healthcare system as having a variety of problems in the exploitation of migrant workers, while Thai health personnel provides services without discrimination in all groups. In reality, Thai laws and national healthcare scheme require certain specific limited conditions for migrant workers for reasons of security, disease prevention, and control, including Thailand’s struggle to deal with an influx of both legal and illegal workers into the country. Therefore, it is not easy to manage the healthcare scheme in order to increase coverage and equality for migrants and Thais alike. This study attempts to understand the development direction of the Thai health system as it moves into the future to provide coverage for all involved parties based on social capital and feasibility of action under the health policies of the developing country destination of Thailand.
 
 

The socio-political context of migration and reproductive health disparities: The case of early sexual initiation among Mexican-origin immigrant young women

Prior research often explains the lower risk of early sexual initiation among foreign-born Mexican-origin young women by a patriarchal and sexually conservative “traditional Latino culture.” This definition overlooks structural factors such as exploitation of migrant workers, and conflates gender inequality and sexual expectations. I use an intersectional framework and the theory of gender and power to explore how gender inequality and sexual expectations are both influenced by structural factors and affect reproductive health outcomes. I integrate data from qualitative interviews with 21 first and second generation Mexican-origin women in 2013–2014 with data from discrete time hazard models with 798 Mexican-origin young women in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Qualitative results demonstrate that gender inequality and sexual expectations in Mexican-origin immigrant households are associated with structural factors. Gender inequality occurs more often in households with family instability, greater poverty, and among parents who migrated independently. Qualitative data also demonstrate that parental gendered expectations are sometimes at odds to what parents are actually doing in the household. Finally, contrary to assumptions that a patriarchal “traditional Latino culture” protects against early sexual initiation, qualitative and multivariate quantitative data suggest that household gender inequality increases risk of early sexual initiation. These findings challenge the utility of a culturalist approach that views culture as determining health behavior among immigrants and demonstrate the need to incorporate an intersectional framework that includes structural factors. This approach may reduce stereotypes and identify meaningful interventions to reduce reproductive health disparities.

Using Global Migration Law to Prevent Human Trafficking

Our understanding of human trafficking has changed significantly since 2000, when the international community adopted the first modern antitrafficking treaty—the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children (Trafficking Protocol). Policy attention has expanded beyond a near-exclusive focus on sex trafficking to bring long-overdue attention to nonsexual labor trafficking. That attention has helped surface how the lack of international laws and institutions pertaining to labor migration can enable—if not encourage—the exploitation of migrant workers. Many migrant workers throughout the world labor under conditions that do not qualify as trafficking yet suffer significant rights violations for which access to protection and redress is limited. Failing to attend to these “lesser” abuses creates and sustains vulnerability to trafficking.

Expelling Slavery from the Nation: Representations of labour exploitation in Australia’s supply chain

On 4 May 2015, the Australian national broadcaster’s current affairs programme Four Corners aired an episode titled ‘Slaving Away: The dirty secrets behind Australia’s fresh food’, that provided revelations of labour exploitation of migrant workers on working holiday visas. The government reacted swiftly to these allegations with an ‘operation’ ostensibly designed to stop the exploitation. In reports of Operation Cloudburst, however, there was a shift in the media’s definition of the problem: worker exploitation became visa violations and newspapers shortly reported the resulting action taken: the ‘illegal workers’ in Australia’s food industry had been arrested. This paper tracks the competing discursive and visual representations of this case that ultimately made questions of labour rights become questions of immigration, making it plausible and acceptable that concern over exploitation of workers should be addressed by deportation of ‘illegal immigrants’. Such discursive slippage is enabled by cultural amnesia over Australia’s history of exploitation of racialised and migrant labourers, which allows ‘slavery’ to be represented as a ‘foreign’ problem that can be expelled in defence of the purity of the national domestic space.

Unions and collective bargaining in Australia in 2015

For Australian unions, 2015 was a difficult year. Union membership and agreement-making continued to decline, and unions faced intense scrutiny from the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption and the Productivity Commission's inquiry into workplace relations. The protection of local employment standards and the exploitation of migrant workers were at the core of prominent union campaigns. In the federal public sector, as in parts of private industry, unions faced protracted negotiations with employers. In some states, unions enjoyed a more favourable climate under Labor governments. Ahead of the forthcoming federal election, unions refocused on grassroots campaigning in marginal electorates as the prospect of legislative reforms to industrial relations looms large.

Hyper-precarious lives

This paper unpacks the contested inter-connections between neoliberal work and welfare regimes, asylum and immigration controls, and the exploitation of migrant workers. The concept of precarity is explored as a way of understanding intensifying and insecure post-Fordist work in late capitalism. Migrants are centrally implicated in highly precarious work experiences at the bottom end of labour markets in Global North countries, including becoming trapped in forced labour. Building on existing research on the working experiences of migrants in the Global North, the main part of the article considers three questions. First, what is precarity and how does the concept relate to working lives? Second, how might we understand the causes of extreme forms of migrant labour exploitation in precarious lifeworlds? Third, how can we adequately theorize these particular experiences using the conceptual tools of forced labour, slavery, unfreedom and precarity? We use the concept of ‘hyper-precarity’ alongside notions of a ‘continuum of unfreedom’ as a way of furthering human geographical inquiry into the intersections between various terrains of social action and conceptual debate concerning migrants’ precarious working experiences.

Report: Blood strawberries

“inhuman, unprecedented and shameful”, saying the shootings were “foreign to Greek ethics”. But the Greek unions’ criticisms of the government are about the broader circumstances – the exploitative strawberry-production industry atlarge – as well as the instance of violence against the workers. Shortly after the shootings the GSEE accused the government of failing to properly monitor the conditions of migrant workers in the region. The GSEE has described the strawberry industry in the Nea Manolada area as a ‘state within a state’ where the exploitation of migrant workers is rife, and unions and activists called for a boycott of the ‘blood strawberries’ in the days following the shootings There are reports that about 6,000 migrants work in the region as strawberry pickers during the harvest season for wages that the local population could not accept or survive on. There is a particular injustice in this exploitation as strawberry production is a profitable industry, but employers pay poverty wages to undocumented workers – sometimes even resorting to slave labour – while one in four workers is unemployed in Greece. Migration, exploitation, and trafficking The ITUC has noted, in relation to this case, the growing problem of labour-related human trafficking . In its report on the shooting it explained: ‘According to the EU report published [in April 2013], the number of victims of human trafficking (including those trafficked for labour exploitation) is increasing in Europe. The number of identified or presumed victims mounted by 18 % between 2008 and 2010. During the same time period, however, the number of convictions for human trafficking fell by 13 per cent. Agreed in 2011, Directive 2011/36/EU on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings and protecting its victims proposes higher penalties for offenders, increased protection for victims and aims to make prosecution easier. But so far, only 6 out of the 27 EU member states have fully transposed the EU Anti-Trafficking Directive into their national legislation, despite a deadline of 6 April, and Greece is obviously not among them. Human trafficking is worth an estimated 2.5 billion EUR in Europe alone, bringing easy, low-risk illicit profits to the exploiters and costing workers lost chances, damaged health, emotional suffering and more and more often a deadly danger for any attempt of standing up for rights’. Last year gunmen on a Greek farm shot and injured 35 strawberry pickers during a strike to demand unpaid wages INTERNATIONAL union rights Page 20 Volume 21 Issue 3 2014 ‘S wift and exemplary’ punishment was promised by Greek officials in the hours after farmers shot and injured 35 strawberry pickers working on their farm. 14 months later a court acquitted the farm’s owner and one of the shooters, while two others were convicted but released on bail pending appeal. The victims were Bangladeshi migrant workers who hadn’t been paid for over five months. In the weeks leading up to the attack the workers had gone on strike twice and were repeatedly promised that they would be paid their poverty wages (€22 per day, minus €6 for food and living costs) soon. As the strawberry pickers were undocumented migrants they felt that they could not approach the authorities for help. On 28 April 2013, after an unproductive meeting between the workers and the farm’s owner (wealthy fruit producer Nikos Vangelatos), three armed men arrived at the ‘camp’ where the workers were living and told them that they would be replaced. About 200 workers left the camp and went en masse to the strawberry fields where the three Greek men opened fire, injuring 35 before fleeing the scene. While no one suffered life-threatening injuries at least four workers were treated for serious wounds. The three gunmen and Vangelatos were tried for a range of offences including aggravated assault, grievous bodily harm, illegal possession of firearms and forced labour. Although the victims ’ case was sponsored by the UNHCR the three-member judicial panel reached the verdict in just 15 minutes and failed to give a reasoned decision. While the two gunmen who were convicted were sentenced to 14 years and seven months, and eight years and seven months, it is unclear whether the sentences will be upheld...

Out of sight, out of mind: the exploitation of migrant workers in 21st-century Britain

Over the past decade, a team at the University of Hull has undertaken four separate but linked research projects investigating the working and living conditions of migrant workers in the United Kingdom (UK).1 Those studies drew on the experiences of a broad range of service providers – national and local, statutory and voluntary – all of whom had regular interaction with vulnerable workers or their advocates, together with the testimonies of several hundred migrant workers who had themselves experienced or witnessed employment (and related accommodation) exploitation in gangmaster UK. The findings, summarised here, are an indictment of British government indifference to the exploitation of the migrant workforce.

Razing Arizona: Migrant labour and the 'Mexican avenger' of Machete

This article focuses on representations of Latinas/os and labour in US cinema. It is particularly interested in Robert Rodriguez's Machete, a 'Mexican avenger' film that debuted less than three months after the passing of a controversial immigration bill in Arizona (Senate Bill 1070). Although many reviews snubbed the film's 'trivial' delivery of immigration politics, I argue that Machete's strength as a social commentary lies in its ability to borrow narrative traits from different genres. The political importance of the film emerges from a dialogue with ethnic exploitation cinema, Chicana/o 'labour films', racial parody and liberal multiculturalism in Hollywood as well as current debates concerning the racialization of citizenship and the exploitation of migrant workers in the United States. Machete's threat of a Latina/o uprising against conservative immigration reform is disguised as 'light' entertainment, providing an oblique critique of 'whiteness' not often found in 'serious' genres of Hollywood.

Defining Trafficking/Denying Justice? Forced Labour in Ireland and the Consequences of Trafficking Discourse

In 2008 Ireland enacted legislation to define and prosecute human trafficking. The overriding emphasis of the Human Trafficking (Criminal Law) Act is on trafficking as a crime against the state, with provisions to protect victims only vaguely articulated in a separate piece of legislation. The Irish approach thus remains far removed from the victim-centred human-rights-based approach advocated by local lobbyists and international reports, which argue for a shift away from pinpointing movement and coercion as integral to trafficking and focusing instead on exploitation as its essence. The rationale for this was that, while people's movement might initially be deemed to be ‘smuggling’, their eventual exploitation could constitute ‘trafficking’. As this paper will show on the basis of current empirical research into trafficking for forced labour in Ireland, we would concur that exploitation should be understood as the essence of trafficking. Few cases ‘tick all the boxes’ of a rigid definition of trafficking, yet the exploitation of migrant workers is rife. Ironically the long-awaited enshrining of the crime of human trafficking in Irish law may have the undesirable consequence of drawing a line between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ exploited, thereby denying justice to many who migrate for work and find their rights and dignity violated in the process.

Labour Migration in South Asia: A Review of Issues, Policies and Practices

This paper presents a detailed review of international labour migration trends, issues and challenges and policies in South Asia based on an analysis of recent trends. It first provides a broad sketch of migration profiles in major South Asian countries: Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, There are some distinctive characteristics of migration from these countries: high concentration of flows to the Gulf and Middle East countries; largely temporary migration flows; predominance of semi-skilled and low-skilled workers in flows; informal and irregular status of part of the migration flows; and prevalence of trafficking in human beings and smuggling of persons. The paper next goes on to discuss the major challenges faced by the countries in terms of governance of migration, protection of migrant workers and maximizing development benefits of migration. The governance challenges relate to high ,migration costs, rampant recruitment malpractices, inadequate institutional and regulatory framework for administration of labour migration, lack of transparent policies and limited cooperation between origin and destination countries. On the protection side, the major issues are: high level of abuse and exploitation of migrant workers and violation of their basic rights in destination countries, extreme vulnerability of female domestic migrant workers, and migrant workers in irregular status and trafficked persons, and lack of access to justice and redress mechanisms. The development challenges arise from lack of recognition of development benefits of migration in national policy frameworks, high costs of remittance transfer, absence of productive avenues for remittance utilization, lack of suitable programmes for assisting return migrants and utilising their skills and capital, and poor linkages with diaspora communities. The paper next analyses the role of migration policies in addressing these challenges. Most policies followed by South Asian countries are in the nature of emigration or foreign employment policies, with unclear policies for foreign workers inside their own countries. This is very clear cut in the case of India which is hosting millions of migrant workers from neighbouring countries. Apart from Sri Lanka, no country has ratified any international instrument concerning migrant workers. The paper highlights that legislative and policy frameworks and practices relating to migration have not been modified to deal with current and emerging challenges. It is a matter for concern that migration is being viewed as a national security issue by some countries in South Asia with adverse consequences for protection of rights of the immigrant populations. The paper points out the important role of international instruments and good practices for improving current migration policies. The conclusions identify the crucial role of India as the major emigration-immigration- transit country in the subregion for setting a good practice example in developing comprehensive and transparent migration policies based on international norms. The author also highlights the scope for a subregional approach to migration policy in South Asia through the SAARC framework although progress up to now has been quite limited. The paper concludes by making a case for transparent policies with full respect for rights and equal treatment of both national and foreign workers and with due consideration to gender specific concerns, and moving towards an inclusive and transparent migration policy which ensures equal protection for both national and foreign workers in line with international norms.

Thoughts on Finding and Assisting Individuals in Forced Labor in the USA

This article draws from interviews with formerly trafficked persons who have resettled in the USA. It has not been easy finding trafficked persons in the USA. The author contends that this is due, in part, to a focus of most antitrafficking activities on one industry — the sex industry — to the exclusion of investigations into exploitation of migrant workers in other labor sectors. At the same time, undocumented workers stay quiet about workplace abuses because of a fear of deportation. ICE raids on workplaces where undocumented migrants may labor and the passage of local ordinances that empower local police officers to enforce immigration laws (287g agreements), have increased distrust between law enforcement and migrant communities. Forced underground, migrants working in vulnerable situations will be harder to find and to assist. This environment of threat shapes the resettlement of formerly trafficked persons since they typically enter the same low-wage, insecure and possibly exploitative work after being trafficked. More meaningful rights-based alliances with community-based organizations that focus on migrants’ rights is a critical step to preventing forced labor and to assisting formerly trafficked persons. The fight against trafficking is a fight for migrants’ rights.

“Our England”: discourses of “race” and class in party election leaflets

This article examines two election leaflets distributed in Bradford, UK as part of the May 2006 local election campaigns of the Labour Party and the British National Party. Drawing on critical discourse analysis, the article shows that prejudicial ethnicist discourse is not solely the purview of marginal far-right political parties, but is incorporated by mainstream British political communications. Specifically, I argue the two leaflets share similar ideological assumptions and arguments: first, of English exceptionalism; second, a representation of migrants as “things” that we have a right and a need to manage in the interests of “Our” nation; and third, the complete elision of class identity and conflict when examining who benefits from the exploitation of migrant workers.

Agencies of Slavery: The Exploitation of Migrant Workers by Recruitment Agencies

This paper has been led by the desire to reinstate the concept of real consent back into the discourse on migration and the recruitment process. An examination of the concept of recruitment for employ ment and of recruitment agencies will reveal the important role such intermediaries play in the international migration process. This will be followed by a brief description of both the international and national regulations presently governing recruitment agencies. The experience of Ireland and its recent unique encounters with international migration for employment will be used as a case study to demonstrate the types of obstacles that prevent real consensual recruitment for employment. The lack of regulation at an international and national level causes these obstacles. It is this author's opinion that certain measures are more effective than international action in this regard due to the inevitable flexibility and compromise inherent in international law. It is only when such obstacles are removed that real consent can finally be reinstated back into the lives of those migrating for employment, allowing the development of an open, transparent, and exploitation free recruitment process.