An advocate for migrant workers says immigration exploitation is the worst it's ever been and is calling on the Government to make changes.
The Immigration Department has just started an audit of the Kiwi employers accredited to hire migrant workers, but it's only checking 15 percent of them.
Anu Kaloti has dedicated her life to helping those moving to New Zealand for a better life. She has never seen migrant exploitation so bad.
"It is just rife. And to give you some figures, in the last few weeks there hasn't been a single day when we have not received a call from a migrant worker who is seeking help for their exploitation."
She blames the visa process set up by the Government as part of its immigration reset.
"The promise from the Government and the Minister of Immigration was that this is going to stop all exploitation, it's going to stamp out exploitation. But we have seen the opposite. It has increased exploitation."
"What we're seeing are some overseas agents who aren't necessarily licensed, and they're outside the New Zealand jurisdiction where we're seeing some very poor behaviour. That existed before COVID as well," said Immigration New Zealand's general manager Richard Owen.
Employers wanting to hire migrants have to be accredited by immigration. They have to advertise the job to Kiwis first, but then can apply to have the roles filled by migrants.
The employer is issued what's called a 'job token' to send to migrants applying for visas. 26,000 employers have been accredited and now Immigration New Zealand is doing an audit.
"The accredited employer scheme has been in for just over a year so we're going through a whole series of checks and we're looking at 15 percent of all employers who've received accreditation," said Owen.
When he was asked by Newshub if 15 percent was too low he replied: " I'd say that's quite a significant number. I'd probably say the opposite, to be honest with you."
Kaloti says all accredited employers should be checked, to crack down on bad behaviour.
"That's really shocking, horrific and that's disappointing considering the amount of exploitation we have at present."
The morning, before he was forced to give up the immigration, reigns, the now-former minister Michael Wood refused to accept blame.
"Let's be clear where the blame for this lies. It lies with unscrupulous agents offshore or unscrupulous employers onshore. It is not the fault of Immigration New Zealand that there is exploitation the same way it is not the fault of police [that] there is sometimes crime."
"We keep tying and bonding our workers to employers which is akin to modern-day slavery," Kaloti said.
Anu says letting workers simply change employers would be a relatively simple solution to what she says is a worsening exploitation problem.
