Some employers in Malta are not paying their third-country workers for months, only to report them to the police to ensure their deportation and avoid paying them, according to an EU report released yesterday.
Therefore, even when victims do file a report to the authorities, they might still not be treated as victims, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights pointed out.
FRA yesterday published the first EU study that comprehensively explores all criminal forms of labour exploitation of migrant workers and those who have moved from one EU country to the other.
The top three economic sectors in which workers in Malta are at risk of labour exploitation are construction, followed by accommodation and food service activities, and agriculture and fishing.
People working in irregular situations were the most vulnerable and most at risk of exploitation. Those who do not have the right to work are not protected by law.
Typical situations of severe labour exploitation of workers moving within or into the EU include no salary paid or salary considerably below the legal minimum wage, parts of remuneration flowing back to the employer on various – and often unreasonable – grounds and lack of social security payments.
They also include extremely long working hours for six or seven days a week, very few or no days of leave and working conditions which differ significantly from what was agreed. The retaining of passports and having hardly any contact with nationals or people outside the company also qualify as labour exploitation.
The range of individuals protected by criminal law provisions against severe exploitation in employment relationships varies considerably among member states. Malta is flagged as one of seven countries which protects only third-country nationals in irregular situations.
Countries such as Belgium, France, Germany and Poland protect anyone against exploitative working conditions that violate human dignity, including nationals and EU-nationals.
According to experts interviewed by FRA, two factors stand out very clearly as increasing the risk of labour exploitation. The first is impunity – that is, the low risk to offenders of being prosecuted and punished or of having to compensate exploited workers. The second is the lack of institutions that effectively monitor the situation of workers moving within or into the EU.
This points to a vicious cycle: non-reporting causes impunity, and impunity discourages reporting.
“The risk of being exploited is aggravated by labour migration regimes that link rights to residence to work permits,” the report notes.
In Lithuania, for example, the worker has to leave the country if the employment contract is terminated. The situation is similar in Cyprus and Malta.
The report emphasises the significance of poverty as a strong factor contributing to the risk of exploitation.
It quotes a representative of a victim support organisation in Malta highlighting such workers’ need to send money to their families back home or to pay debts incurred to pay for transportation or recruitment.
“Let us not forget that these people have paid a lot of money before they crossed over. So they paid money or they borrowed money to leave their land of origin.
“So these people have a lot of debts and that is why they are vulnerable, because they owe so much money they have to see from where they are going to bring it to pay up.”