An Exploratory Study on the Role of Corruption in International Labor Migration
January 2016 An Exploratory Study on the Role of Corruption in International Labor Migration 1 2 Background In the 2013 white paper, “Corruption and Labor Trafficking in Global Supply Chains,” Verité detailed how fraud, corruption, bribery, and other illegal practices are common features of the international recruitment of migrant workers. The myriad official approvals, documents, and associated fees – foreign worker quotas, job order attestations, exit and guest worker visas, medical certifications, police clearances, work permits etc. – required to deploy a migrant worker from one country to another mean the opportunities and incentives for employers and their recruitment agents to bribe civil servants have become a structural feature of the international labor migration process. Since recruitment agents and employers ultimately transfer most, if not all, of the upfront costs of employment to foreign migrant workers, both of these Executive Summary Executive forms of recruitment-related corruption directly contribute to the excessive and illegal fee burdens frequently faced by migrant workers. In this way corruption is a significant contributing element to migrant worker vulnerability to debt bondage, human trafficking, and forced labor. Further, Verité and others have pointed out that the corrupt activities all too common in migrant worker recruitment also create potential legal risk for companies under origin and destination country laws as well as extraterritorial anti-corruption statutes such as the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and the UK Bribery Act (UKBA). Because multinationals can be liable for the acts of their foreign subsidiaries, franchisees, joint venture entities, and even suppliers that use third party employment agencies under a number of legal theories including traditional agency principles, the risk arises where corrupt payments result in a direct or indirect benefit to an employer – an improper advantage – through cheap migrant labor or the avoidance of the upfront costs of employment.
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