Exploitation thrives when enforcement falls behind
Wednesday, 24 June 2026
David Burton is an employment law barrister at www.burtonlaw.co.nz.
OPINION: The Budget announcement that the Government has set aside $18 million over the next fours years to counter migrant exploitation and immigration non-compliance is good news for migrants and those in New Zealand on working visas.
In announcing the funding the Immigration Minister, Erica Stanford, said that the funding would be used for three new front-line teams to respond to serious offending, protect people from harm and exploitation, and increase the number of cases investigated.
A recent Employment Tribunal decision in the United Kingdom illustrates the effect that non-compliance by so-called employers on migrants can have on migrant employees that accept work in good faith and move to a new country with limited support for migrants.
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Shabin Shaji, a 33-year-old Indian citizen, came to the UK to work as a care worker through a post-Brexit visa scheme for an “employer”, Swan Care Solutions Ltd, that failed to provide him with a single days work.
Shaji paid agents £17,000 before he was interviewed for a role at Swan Care Solutions on WhatsApp. He was “successful”, and was then given a certificate of sponsorship, entitling him to live and work in the UK with Swan Care Solutions as his Home Office-approved sponsoring employer. The computer science graduate emigrated from Kerala to Stafford, England, bought a car for the job and undertook online training in 2023 believing there was a major shortage of healthcare workers in the UK.
His sponsored visa prevented him from working for anyone else for more than 20 hours a week. The Tribunal heard that Swan Care Solutions’ staff suggested Shaji take cash-in-hand jobs and use a food bank when he said he was struggling, telling him they would be in touch when it was his turn.
Shaji described being broke and having to rely on charity. He drank tap water and bought bread close to its expiration date to survive. He looked around local shops in Stafford for free bananas and bread for those who were struggling. He said he attended church and after worship the good people shared snacks with tea with him, for which he was very grateful.
He described being in a terrible situation, feeling like no-one in authority cared “if I lived or died”. A year after his arrival in the UK, Shaji eventually managed to secure sponsorship with another employer in April 2024, but he later returned to India in ill health.
The Employment Tribunal ordered Swan Care Solutions to pay Shaji nearly £30,000 wages for the work he was “ready, able and willing to do”. The judge, Kate Edmonds said “the claimant had done what needed to be done to start work. He was now in the country, with the right permissions, and living in the right location. However, the respondent did not provide him with work, nor did they pay him.”
In New Zealand, Immigration NZ statistics show for the financial year July 1 to June 30, 2025 there were:
Complaints received – 2798
Investigation actions taken – 413
Warnings issued – 45
Prosecutions – 4
Perhaps the most significant prosecution that financial year was of Ratha Ny, the owner and director of R.S.X Ltd (trading as the Bakehouse Café in Murupara) who pleaded guilty and was convicted in March 2025 for four charges under the Immigration Act for providing false or misleading information to Immigration NZ. His company, R.S.X Ltd, also pleaded guilty and was convicted of six exploitation charges for serious breaches of employment law, including knowingly underpaying employees below the minimum wage and failing to correctly pay holiday and related entitlements. The Court fined R.S.X Ltd $150,000 for the six exploitation charges and ordered the company to pay $25,000 in emotional harm reparations — $10,000 each to two victims and $5000 to a third. These reparations were paid by Ny in anticipation of sentencing and were not court-imposed. This brought the total court-imposed penalty to $175,000. These penalties were in addition to $160,000 in minimum wage arrears that R.S.X Ltd had already repaid to the affected workers prior to sentencing.
Minister Stanford explained that the need for the extra funding was due to “delays in responding to migrant exploitation, bad behaviour by employers” and to justify more stringent changes in relation to the ability to deport migrants facing more minor criminal offences.
Speaking for the Labour Party, Phil Twyford said “Labour welcomes the increased resources for combating migrant worker exploitation”, “increased staffing for compliance in this area was a condition of Labour’s support for the India free trade agreement”.
Migrants legally entitled to work in New Zealand often leave family, careers and support networks behind them, and arrive with little support in New Zealand. At the least, they should be provided the protection that the criminal laws, immigration laws and employment laws afford. The problem is ensuring that those migrants know their rights, the protections that are provided and channels for reporting breaches – and of course adequate resourcing to ensure compliance with those laws.