The risks to migrant workers using informal and unregulated labour migration channels are well documented: forced labour, including labour trafficking; debt bondage primarily due to high recruitment fees; child labour; excessive work hours; underpayment and withholding of wages; denial of social benefits; and unchecked health and safety hazards are all among the risks migrant workers face.
Regulation and explicit, enforced protections are widely recognized as critical to mitigating such abuses. Reforms have been urged by industry and NGO initiatives, and government actors have taken steps to make the formal, so-called Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) channel, more responsive, efficient, and effective.
Yet despite these well-documented risks and efforts to curtail recruitment abuses, informal recruitment channels continue to thrive; a remarkably high number of workers are still using informal means to enter and work in Thailand.
The focus of this paper is to explain why this is occurring.
The Peoples’ Republic of China (PRC) has created an ex- pansive system of unprecedented state control over the 13 million Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other minoritized eth- nic and religious groups of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autono- mous Region (Uyghur...Read More
The case studies described in this brief reveal that there are benefits for suppliers to implementing social and environmental improvement programs, including improved workforce productivity, cost savings, and stronger competitiveness. Buyers also b...Read More
Report on migrant garment workers in Japan’s state-supported Technical Internship Training Program (TITP) are subjected to widespread labour violations including poverty pay, debt bondage, enforced overtime, and inadequate and crowded living and w...Read More
Many global businesses are run with consideration for the well-being of the people whose lives they touch. But others—whether through incompetence or by design— seriously harm the communities around them, their workers, and even the governments...Read More
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