Zimbabweans exploited by UK care workers recruiting firm

A care company serving National Health Service patients has been charging migrant workers from Africa thousands of pounds to work in the UK when the cost of a visa is only a few hundred pounds, the Guardian has learned.

Care workers from Zimbabwe were told to pay the sums to Gloriavd Health Care Ltd in return for arranging social care jobs in and around Leeds and Bath.

They also claimed they were given far less paid work than they had been led to expect, were housed in overcrowded rooms and faced a threat that their conduct could be reported to the Home Office, leading them to fear deportation if they complained.

One woman alleged she sold her home in rural South Africa to pay £6 500 in fees to the company operated by Gloria Van Dunem only to find she and her colleagues had so little work they had to rely on food banks.

“She took all that I had,” said Winnet Mushaninga, 40, a qualified care worker from Zimbabwe who has been living near Durban. “The trauma and suffering was too much. We paid a lot of money. It’s just painful.”

The allegations come after the Home Office added care workers to the UK’s shortage occupation list in 2022 to help fill 165 000 vacancies in care homes and domiciliary care. There has been rising concern about the exploitation of the immigration route by some social care and employment agencies.

Mushaninga told the Guardian she was recruited directly from Africa by Gloriavd and understood the fee would cover the cost of the visa and the certificate of sponsorship as well as two months’ accommodation and access to a full-time job. The Guardian has seen evidence of bank transfers on her behalf to the company’s bank account totalling £5 500.

But on arrival in Britain last April, Mushaninga alleged she had to live squeezed four to a room with mattresses on the floor, earned just £20 a day, and ended up feeding herself from a church food bank.

The Home Office charges no more than £551 for a visa for care workers and the cost of a sponsor licence for a small company to bring in foreign care workers is £536.

Gloriavd Health Care Ltd was set up by Gloria Van Dunem in 2020 and is registered with the Care Quality Commission, which rates it as “requires improvement”. The NHS Integrated Care Board in Leeds said it has awarded the firm two consecutive contracts making it an approved provider to deliver care in people’s homes.

Mushaninga is among several care workers in Yorkshire being supported by the Leeds branch of Acorn, a community union that is running a Carers Fight Back campaign “not only to win back justice, compensation and job security for our members that have worked for Gloriavd, but for every worker across the UK that is experiencing this injustice,” said Rohan Prasad-Weitz, branch secretary.

Van Dunem’s lawyer told the Guardian “she did not accept money from care workers in exchange for facilitating their relocation to the UK”.

“No money was taken by our client for the immigration skill charge and for assigning certificates of sponsorship from the employees,” the lawyer said, adding they had seen evidence that the matters put to their client were “wholly inaccurate” and lacked “any basis in truth”.

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