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6 - Recruitment Fees, Indebtedness, and the Impairment of Asian Migrant Workers’ Rights

from Part I - Migration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 November 2021

By
Pedro de Sena
Edited by
Tesseltje de Lange ,
Willem Maas  and
Annette Schrauwen
Tesseltje de Lange
Affiliation:
Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen
Willem Maas
Affiliation:
York University, Toronto
Annette Schrauwen
Affiliation:
Universiteit van Amsterdam
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Summary

This chapter examines the impact of recruitment fees and debt in intra-Asian labour migration. It explores the connection between financial decisions taken during recruitment at origin and the legal protection of migrants at destination. The link between these temporal and spatial dimensions is often overlooked in literature, particularly from a legal perspective. The chapter analyses data on Asian countries to characterize existing recruitment models and the policy responses to address them. The purpose is to design a comprehensive response to the negative externalities of the prevalent recruitment model in Asia. The chapter presents legal perspectives and conceptualizations applied to recruitment fees in literature. It identifies the recruitment fees’ structure and presents the typology of fees charged to migrant workers. It analyses the consequences of migration financing methods in the creation of a cycle of debt. Finally, it reflects on how migration-related debt is shaped and which forces contribute to its lastingness. In its concluding remarks, the chapter advocates a holistic approach, encompassing the legal and economic features of the recruitment process.

Keywords

recruitment feeslabour migrationAsiamigration financing methodsdebt bondage
Type
Chapter
Information
Money Matters in Migration
Policy, Participation, and Citizenship
 , pp. 93 - 111
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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