We Are Utterly Reliant on Immigrant Workers – But Who Cares About Reality?

Penny Pepper shares her experiences of recruiting migrant care workers, who can find themselves enduring exploitation and abuse for their efforts

The young woman who attended the interview had brown hair, her face permanently anxious. Her name was Petra, and she came from the Czech Republic, in the hope of working for me. This was in the early 2000s, some four years after the Community Care (Direct Payments) Act came into effect and meant that disabled people were able to opt for receiving funds directly.

It was a novel, and at times unsettling, experience – the autonomy bringing responsibility – and I found myself learning fast about the process of recruitment and interviewing.

This was pre-Brexit, four years after freedom of movement became enshrined in EU law, and supported the influx of many young women who applied for work within the broadest context of the care industry. It was an eye-opener.

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