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UK: The noise on immigration is drowning out real problems

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by IDWFED published May 13, 2013 12:00 AM
Can governments ever be tough enough on immigration? Ask any canvasser and they report grim news from the doorstep: whatever the issue – housing, jobs, benefits – in these hard times the blame has been successfully diverted on to migrants for taking jobs and homes. Tighten the screw, pull up the drawbridge, cut off the attractions that draw them to the UK, but no political action is ever enough to sate the demand for tougher border defences.

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Read the original article in full: The noise on immigration is drowning out real problems | Guardian UK

Can governments ever be tough enough on immigration? Ask any canvasser and they report grim news from the doorstep: whatever the issue – housing, jobs, benefits – in these hard times the blame has been successfully diverted on to migrants for taking jobs and homes. Tighten the screw, pull up the drawbridge, cut off the attractions that draw them to the UK, but no political action is ever enough to sate the demand for tougher border defences.

The government frequently takes noisy public action, even when it knows some things are far worse than useless. Economically, it's madness to cut off valuable students from China and India for the sake of hitting a meaningless "net" migration statistic. Morally, some "action" means deliberately turning a blind eye to some abuse that would shock many of the same people who want immigration cut, if they knew.

Britain is importing domestic slaves and ignoring what becomes of them so long as they vanish from the official figures. Wealthy foreigners are encouraged to come to London to spend their money, and last year they brought with them 15,745 domestic servants on overseas domestic worker visas. Rich families from India, Nigeria and the Middle East bring servants from the Philippines, Indonesia or elsewhere, usually not their own country. A year ago the government changed the visa requirements, making these servants the absolute slaves of their employers, with no escape from frequently appalling abuse.

In 1998 Labour took action to give these servants – almost all women – freedom to escape employers who often physically and sexually abuse them. And although they were still pitifully vulnerable, their treatment improved once they had the essential freedom to change jobs. The visa still had strict conditions: they had to find similar domestic work, with no recourse to public funds, proving their employment for annual visa renewal. But a year ago the government turned these women into powerless chattels of their employers by binding their visa to work only for the family that brought them in. The inevitable result has been a dramatic worsening of their lives as bonded slaves.

The charity Kalayaan acts as advocate and haven for foreign domestic workers: it lobbied Labour hard to win the visa change and won a Guardian charity award. Its figures tell the story of the effect of the new visa. Since it came in, all those arriving at its door are paid less than £100, compared with 60% before the new visa requirements came in. In all, 95% are paid less than £50 a week with 62% never paid at all, up from 14% unpaid on the old visa. Why would employers pay when workers have no freedom to leave? Before the new visa, 31% had no room of their own; this has risen to 85% who often sleep in the kitchen or lounge with no bed or place for possessions. Most are permanently on call and get little sleep. None of them interviewed during the last year said they have any day off. Some 96% report that to prevent them running away they are never allowed out unsupervised.

The stories I heard from escaped women at Kalayaan were shocking. "Anna" was brought in by a Nigerian family she already worked for: she is from another African country. But they returned and handed her on to their son's family, who took away her passport and paid her no wages, which she had previously been sending home for school fees for her three sisters. She was sometimes thrown out on to the doorstep in winter until morning. She worked unpaid in the family's shops and restaurant while cleaning and caring for the children. She ran away, with one plastic bag, speaking only French, and asked for help from the only person she knew – the children's schoolteacher – who kindly took her in and directed her to Kalayaan. Now she inhabits a limbo where so many end up, with no passport, no visa, and no work. Kalayaan says embassies are rarely helpful when employers have withheld passports, taking the side of the rich and powerful with political influence back home.

"Maria", from Indonesia, was brought to London from Dubai by an Arab family who beat, half-starved and threatened her. She escaped and waited in Victoria coach station until she heard someone speaking her language, who helped her. But under the new visa system Kalayaan has little to offer. Cheated, abused and brought in under false pretences, Maria could be designated as trafficked, but that doesn't help. The National Referral Mechanism would offer 45 days of accommodation with the Salvation Army for a period of "recovery" and then she would be sent back. Legal aid cuts mean these people have no right to representation – they will be deported, then vulnerable to the same trafficking and exploitation again.

Workers on these visas now know that there is little point in reporting abusive employers to the police: they will just be deported for breaking the terms of their visa.

In the last year many fewer people have turned to Kalayaan, knowing there is nothing they can do to sue their employer, get their passport and missing wages or help settle them with another job now that changing employer is illegal. Revenue & Customs only has 100 officers to police the minimum wage across the whole country – and they don't go looking in rich foreign households where domestic worker visas are registered. So thousands vanish underground, where they are prone to every kind of exploitation – while undermining local pay rates. It would be better by far to regularise them and arrest their abusers, thereby protecting others in their vulnerable situation and deterring slave employers.

David Cameron spoke at the opening of an anti-slavery exhibition in the House of Commons last month, designed to warn MPs of hidden slaves brought in by gangmasters, the trafficked children who vanish and the plight of these domestic serfs. Immigration minister Mark Harper was among 100 MPs gathered to hear the PM say: "Modern-day slavery comes in many forms … we have to have a really concerted approach … to make sure that we look at the rights of those who are affected, and take a criminal approach."

You wonder how he can speak the words, knowing what his new visa has done to make slavery a near-certainty for thousands every year. I doubt many people hearing the stories of women like "Anna" and "Maria" would consider creating a growing underworld of the exploited a wise immigration policy.

Source: Polly Toynbee/Guardian UK

Story Type: News

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