News
Keep up to date with all our campaigns, recent media coverage of issues affecting migrant domestic workers and case studies. For regular updates on all our work please follow us on Twitter @kalayaan.
Kalayaan marks 12 years of the harmful Overseas Domestic Worker visa with comrades and allies
By Becca Hirst, Community Engagement Lead for Kalayaan. On 3 April 2024, Kalayaan hosted a coffee morning…
Kalayaan speaks to the United Nations in Geneva
Our Policy Officer, Sophie Levack, attended and made a statement at the Human Rights Committee’s 140th Session…
The National Referral Mechanism: Near Breaking Point – Progress Report 2024 – One Year On
Today, ahead of the Human Trafficking Foundation’s forum held at Linklaters, Kalayaan is launching our new report,…
Kalayaan’s 2024 Policy Briefing
Kalayaan is welcoming the new year with a reinvigorated focus on protecting migrant domestic workers from human trafficking…
The family worker exemption revisited: a sustained campaign against the devaluation of domestic work
Click below to read an article by our Trustee Natalie Sedacca: The family worker exemption revisited: a sustained…
UK Parliament receives evidence from Kalayaan
On 13 September 2023, Kalayaan provided oral evidence on the experience of migrant domestic workers in the United…
Marking 11 years of the harmful Overseas Domestic Worker Visa
On 4 April 2023, ahead of the 11 year anniversary of the visa terms being changed and…
Report launch: The National Referral Mechanism: Near Breaking Point
Today, ahead of the Human Trafficking Foundation‘s forum, held at Linklaters, Kalayaan has published our report: ‘The…
Campaigns
Kalayaan’s campaign and policy work is focused on reinstating the basic rights of migrant domestic workers which were removed in April 2012, tying domestic workers who have entered since this date to their employers. This makes it impossible in practise for migrant domestic workers to assert any rights as, without the right to resign or to leave their employment, they have no bargaining power at all in what is already a vastly unequal employment relationship.
Abuse reported to Kalayaan by workers who have registered with us since April 2012 make it clear that the removal of the rights to change employer not only destroys the chances of migrant domestic workers to access justice once they have escaped abuse. The fact that workers are tied to their employer with no option to leave also results in a worsening of treatment in employment, particularly in restrictions of freedoms.
Kalayaan marks 12 years of the harmful Overseas Domestic Worker visa with comrades and allies
By Becca Hirst, Community Engagement Lead for Kalayaan. On 3 April 2024, Kalayaan hosted a coffee morning…
Kalayaan speaks to the United Nations in Geneva
Our Policy Officer, Sophie Levack, attended and made a statement at the Human Rights Committee’s 140th Session…
The National Referral Mechanism: Near Breaking Point – Progress Report 2024 – One Year On
Today, ahead of the Human Trafficking Foundation’s forum held at Linklaters, Kalayaan is launching our new report,…
The family worker exemption revisited: a sustained campaign against the devaluation of domestic work
Click below to read an article by our Trustee Natalie Sedacca: The family worker exemption revisited: a sustained…
Marking 11 years of the harmful Overseas Domestic Worker Visa
On 4 April 2023, ahead of the 11 year anniversary of the visa terms being changed and…
Report launch: The National Referral Mechanism: Near Breaking Point
Today, ahead of the Human Trafficking Foundation‘s forum, held at Linklaters, Kalayaan has published our report: ‘The…
National Referral Mechanism nears breaking point
Kalayaan has today issued a Public Announcement to put the UK Government on notice of the pressing…
CALL TO ACTION – JOIN THE CAMPAIGN TO #RESTORERIGHTS
Contact your MP to ask they support rights for migrant domestic workers… here’s how: 1. READ OUR OPEN…
Kalayaan client and survivor of slavery on why access to work is crucial to enable independence and sustainable freedom
In 2019, Kalayaan launched our campaign to let survivors of slavery work whilst their claims are under consideration…
Stolen rights: it’s time to give migrant domestic workers their rights back
9 years after rights were stolen from migrant domestic workers in the UK, Kalayaan and The Voice of…
Case Study 1: Trafficked
‘Regina’ (not her real name) was brought to the UK by an employer to work in their private…
Case Study 2: Escaped But Failed
Mira (names and identifying features have been changed) ‘Mira’ was waiting outside Kalayaan in tears with a small…
Case Study 3: Domestic Servitude
KALAYAAN case id: 3294 Susi (name and identifying details have been changed) came to the UK from Qatar…
Case Study 4: No Justice
Kalayaan client ID 3465 Case Study ‘Rupa’ (name and identifying details have been changed) Rupa arrived at Kalayaan…
Case Study 5: Rights, Justice and Rebuilding Lives
Sara- original ODW visa case study Sara, an Indian national, was bought to the UK from Kuwait…
50 women talk about life as a domestic w…
Denounced as giving a ‘veneer of legality to slaveholding’ and despite claims of reform,…
Do we really need a Global Commission on…
Theresa May’s attempt at a legacy project won’t save anybody from ‘modern slavery’.…
I was abused, bullied and left in limbo…
Friday 5 April marks 12 years since Theresa May’s government revoked the Overseas Dome…
‘If you want to abuse your workers, th…
In a letter last week to Michael Tomlinson MP, the Home Office minister for countering illeg…