Responding to the Home Office’s announcement that recognised victims of modern slavery on Skilled Worker visas will be permitted to work for any employer for the remainder of their visa, Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, CEO of the employment justice charity Work Rights Centre, said: “These changes are a major step forward for migrant workers. By agreeing at last to grant modern slavery victims the unrestricted right to work for the remainder of their visas, the Home Office is finally giving migrant workers an incentive to report law-breaking sponsors, allowing authorities to begin uncovering the true scale of labour and financial exploitation enabled by the sponsorship system.

“However, the true impact of this policy hinges on accessibility. The threshold for modern slavery recognition is high, and current definitions routinely fail to protect workers subjected to wage theft or recruitment fee fraud. If officials continue to turn away victims of financial scams and severe labour abuses, this new freedom will remain out of reach for the vast majority who need it.

“Incentivising workers to report labour exploitation is also just half the battle; victims deserve actual restitution. For almost three years we have urged the Home Office to free migrant workers from the control of their sponsors. Over the years it took to introduce this safeguard, countless workers were driven into severe poverty, forced to sleep in cars or on church floors, simply because the law forbade them from taking other work. They deserve compensation.

“Ministers must go beyond revoking sponsor licences. We urge the Home Office to fine and prosecute rogue employers, using those penalty funds to create a dedicated worker compensation scheme. Raising the stakes for bad actors is the only way to deter future abuse and deliver meaningful justice to those who lost everything.”

The Work Rights Centre is calling for:

• Expand NRM [National Referral Mechanism] Accessibility to cover severe labour breaches and recruitment fee fraud.
• Establish a Worker Compensation Scheme funded by financial penalties collected from non-compliant sponsors who have their licences revoked.
• Move beyond licence revocation to criminal prosecutions and heavy fines for visa sponsors who subject migrant workers to labour and financial exploitation.

The Work Rights Centre is a charity dedicated to helping migrant and disadvantaged workers access employment justice and immigration status security.

Image: The Home Office, Marsham Street, Westminster, London https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Home_Office,_Marsham_Street,_Westminster,_London_SW1_-_geograph.org.uk_-_738703.jpg. Source: From geograph.org.uk Author: Kevin Gordon / The Home Office, Marsham Street, Westminster, London SW1 /, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.