Enticed to the UK with promises that never materialise, many women face exploitative or abusive employers – and a government that just wants to deport them.
You see them sometimes in the kitchens and nurseries of wealthy people – women, mostly Filipino, rarely introduced by name. They come to the UK with a promise of income and regular hours, working as housekeepers or nannies to send money back home to their own families; but for many of them the reality is shockingly different.
There are nearly 19,000 people on overseas domestic visas in the UK, according to a Freedom of Information request from the Home Office seen by the Guardian; and together they make up, like the Windrush generation, a population of migrants under threat.
As part of Theresa May’s “hostile environment” policies as home secretary, the UK government changed the law in 2012 so that migrant domestic workers (MDWs) could only come to the UK on a non-renewable six-month “tied visa” – one that bound them to a single, named employer. This means that if their employer is exploitative or abusive, their main means of escape – moving to another employer – is closed to them. Read the full article here.
