Call for Replacement Visas as migrants exploited by rogue UK employers left stranded

LONDON April 29: Lawyers and human rights organisations are calling for urgent action to protect migrant workers exploited by rogue employers, warning that the UK’s migrant visa system risks breaching international human rights laws.

More than 100 lawyers, charities, and rights groups have written to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, urging her to introduce a Replacement Visa scheme for migrant workers who lose their sponsorship through no fault of their own.

Currently, migrants who come to the UK on health and care worker visas or through the skilled worker scheme are vulnerable to serious exploitation. Many pay huge sums to middlemen to secure jobs through the government’s seasonal worker programme — only to arrive and find the promised work does not exist.

Once in the UK, some workers report facing movement restrictions, withheld wages, confiscated passports, and even physical and sexual abuse. Lawyers say many migrants end up trapped, unable to access public funds, often forced into black market jobs just to survive.

Work Rights Centre calls for a new ‘Workplace Justice Visa’

A new report by the employment rights charity Work Rights Centre (WoRC) has raised serious concerns about the UK’s employer-sponsored visa system, warning that it risks fostering widespread labour exploitation and potentially breaches the country’s international human rights obligations.

Drawing on a six-country comparative analysis, the report argues that the current visa model not only creates a dangerous imbalance of power between employers and migrant workers but also fails to provide adequate safeguards or remedies for those subjected to abuse. WoRC calls for the introduction of a new ‘Workplace Justice Visa’ to better protect migrant workers.

Sixty Days Rule

At present, workers in this situation have just 60 days to find a new sponsor, apply for a different visa, or leave the country. However, between July 2022 and December 2024, more than 470 employer sponsorship licences were revoked, leaving over 39,000 workers suddenly without employment or status.

Campaigners are now urging the Home Office to introduce a ‘Workplace Justice Visa’, which would allow exploited workers to stay and find new employment for the duration of their original visa. They are also pushing to extend the current 60-day grace period to six months — bringing the UK more in line with international norms and giving workers a fairer chance to rebuild their lives.

Without such changes, they warn, the UK could be violating its obligations under the European Convention on Human Rights — particularly Article 4, which protects individuals from forced labour and exploitation, and Article 3, which guards against inhuman and degrading treatment.

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

Zoe Bantleman, Legal Director at the Immigration Law Practitioners’ Association, also stressed the systemic imbalance in the sponsorship system: “Unlike their British colleagues, migrant workers cannot live in the UK without employer sponsorship. When the Home Office revokes an employer’s licence, workers lose not just their jobs but their legal status and livelihoods.

In a system built on sponsorship, there must be safeguards to prevent such devastating consequences and to ensure workers can report abuses without fear of destitution.”

The number of health and care workers coming to the UK has already been falling following new immigration rules introduced in January 2024. These rules include a ban on overseas care workers bringing family dependants and a sharp rise in the salary threshold for skilled workers to £38,700.