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12 Feb 2024

UK: Indonesian fruit picker challenges UK seasonal worker scheme over labour exploitation and debt bondage claims; incl. co response

In January 2024, The Guardian reported on exploitation experienced by seasonal agricultural migrant workers in the UK.

The articles follows a case brought by the Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit against the Home Office and Defra, on the experience of an Indonesian worker who left the country in 2022 to work on British farms and ended up ‘effectively stuck’ in debt bondage.

The worker allegedly paid GBP 4,200 in recruitment fees to migrate to the UK on the scheme, only to not be given any work upon arrival. The worker was then transferred to another farm, when 3 months into his expected 6 months picking the work also dried up. Left with only GBP 13, the worker then found a job via a recruiter on Facebook which led him to take a job in a Chinese takeaway, where he experienced abuses include passport confiscation, earning only GBP 300 a week, working over 14 hours a day, and extremely poor living conditions.

In February 2024, the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre invited Meta to respond to the article and to outline how it monitors and removes exploitative content aimed at migrant workers in the UK. Meta's response can be read in full below.