Migrant care worker left homeless after being ‘exploited’ UK employer: ‘It’s a national scandal’

Joseph was promised a better life for his family when he came to the UK to be a care worker two years ago. He left his partner and two young children in Cameroon and paid thousands of pounds to an apparent ‘care agency’ who pledged to sponsor his visa and ensure him work. 

Instead, Joseph found himself trapped – forced to carry out household tasks for his sponsor, in a situation which experts believe may amount to modern slavery or human trafficking. Two months later, he was told there was no work for him and he has faced homelessness ever since.

“My story is horrible,” says Joseph, whose name has been changed to protect his identity. He is currently sleeping on cardboard on the premises of his local church, while he undergoes the government’s immigration process and fights to prove he is a victim of exploitation.

“The only hope is that the government should see that we came here legally and we paid money to come here. They should consider giving us the chance to have another sponsor, and move on with our lives, because we are trapped in the system, and it’s not our fault.”

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At least 39,000 overseas care workers have become victims of exploitative employers whose licences have been revoked by the Home Office since October 2020, according to recent figures from the government. 

It has promised change, with new rules to ensure that care providers who want to recruit a new worker from overseas will first have to prove that they have attempted to recruit a worker from within England who needs new sponsorship.

But experts are calling for far greater protections for migrant care workers who are victims of exploitation. More than 100 charities and lawyers have delivered an open letter to home secretary Yvette Cooper warning that the UK’s visa sponsorship system is at risk of “breaching international human rights obligations”.

Organisations including the Work Rights Centre, the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants (JCWI) and the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association (ILPA) are urging the government to “redress the power imbalance” in visas which are tied to employers – so that victims are free to speak out against exploitation without the risk of deportation.

Dr Dora-Olivia Vicol, chief executive of the Work Rights Centre, said: “We are watching a crisis of migrant worker exploitation unfold as thousands of people are trapped in situations of overwork, abuse or destitution. Unless this government takes action, we will look back on this as a national scandal, ashamed that it was allowed to carry on for so long.”

Joseph, who is being supported by the Work Rights Centre with immigration legal advice, was a carer to his grandmother in Cameroon. She is now 105 and he had been responsible for all her care – taking her to medical appointments, giving her medication and assisting her with daily needs.

The 32-year-old was unable to find a job in Cameroon after he graduated from university, and his mother heard from a friend that they could pay £8,000 for Joseph to become a care worker in the UK. He was promised accommodation and sponsorship, and he hoped he would be able to bring his young family here.

“My mum sold my father’s property for me to come here. I have a document that all my brothers signed for the property to be sold, for me to come here and have a better life,” says Joseph, who is currently living in Buckinghamshire. 

But instead, when he arrived in the UK, he was told that the care contracts had fallen through and there was no work for him – except for household tasks. The company that sponsored him lost its license in November 2024.

Joseph found work in a care home, for 20 hours a week, but they were unable to sponsor his visa, so he is currently looking for a new employer which will sponsor him to stay in the UK. He explains that it is a “frustrating” process.

His boys are 12 and four now, and he misses them deeply. He has not seen them since 2023, and he left them with the promise they would come to the UK to be with him. Meanwhile, his mother does not know that he is homeless. “I’m hiding that from her, because if she finds out, she will be very upset.”

Joseph does not believe he has any opportunities back home in Cameroon and is still hoping he will find work here. After all, migrant care workers form a considerable part of the social care sector in the UK, making up around a third of the workforce.

There is currently a staff shortage for adult social care in England, with the government estimating that an average of 8.3% of social care roles were vacant in 2023/24, equivalent to approximately 131,000 vacancies.

The Work Rights Centre is urging the Home Office to implement a ‘workplace justice visa’, which would help people like Joseph by providing them with secure immigration status while searching for new employment in the UK and taking legal action against exploitative employers.

“The premise of tying a person’s immigration status to their employer is inherently dangerous, but there are steps ministers can take to mitigate the risk,” Vicol says. 

“As ministers work on the upcoming immigration white paper, I’d ask them: ‘If so many of the UK’s international partners are giving migrant workers more time to change sponsors and offering victims of exploitation a secure immigration status, what reasons do you have to withhold these protections from workers in the UK?’”

The open letter also calls for increased penalties for employers who abuse sponsored workers, and for sponsored workers to be given more time and means to find new employers.

Zoe Bantleman, legal director of the ILPA, said: “If an individual in the UK on a work visa faces exploitative or abusive work conditions, our immigration system ensnares rather than empowers them.

“Unlike their British colleagues, the migrant worker cannot live in the UK without their employer sponsoring them. If the Home Office clamps down on their employer, unless they can somehow manage to find a new sponsor, the migrant worker loses their visa, their livelihood, and the life they have built in the UK.

“In a sponsorship system such as this, there must be safeguards to rebalance this asymmetry of power and ensure migrant workers can report violations and seek enforcement of their employment and human rights.”

The Home Office has been contacted for comment.

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