Ban fees for workers who go abroad for jobs, and make employers pay the cost of hiring them
Steps to make it happen
- The law bans companies that find jobs for people from charging money to anyone who wants to work abroad.
- Employers must pay the placement fees, travel costs, visa costs, and health exam costs.
- Before leaving, each worker gets a written work contract in a language they can read.
- Countries together publish a list of trusted placement companies that anyone can see.
- If a company lower in the chain charges a fee, the company that finally hires the worker is also responsible.
- Each country sets up a help desk where workers can get their money back, even after they return home.
- Going abroad to work without taking on debt becomes the normal way.
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The proposal in detail
This proposal makes it a basic rule that the cost of hiring people across borders is paid by the employer, not by the worker. The covered costs include everything needed to take the job: fees to the placement agency, travel, visa and work permit procedures, health exams, training before departure, and translation or certification of documents. Which costs count as hiring costs is set in a list that the sending country and the receiving country publish together, and costs that fall under exceptions, such as items that also serve the worker's own private purposes, are also written clearly in that list. Employers must pay these costs directly. They may not deduct them from wages later or make workers hand over a deposit. Employers and agencies are also forbidden from taking away passports or identity documents. Because recruitment often passes through many layers of subcontractors, the company that finally hires the worker is jointly responsible for paying the money back, no matter at which layer a fee was charged. The sending and receiving countries each license agencies, and they publish and share with each other the list of licensed agencies and the records of violations. The employment contract is given in writing, in a language the worker understands, before departure, and changing the terms to the worker's disadvantage after arrival is not allowed. Workers who were made to pay fees can ask for a refund for a set period, including after they return home, through an office in their home country or online, and the receiving country's oversight body carries out the investigation and collection.
BenefitsWorkers are free of debt, free to quit, and keep their earnings
The biggest effect is that workers can start a job without debt. Without debt, it is easier to quit or ask for help when promises are broken or there is violence at work, and the risk of ending up in something close to forced labor falls greatly. The money they earn stays in their hands instead of vanishing into loan payments, so more is sent home to their families, and life and education in the places people leave also benefit. From the employer's side, since they now pay hiring costs themselves, they will pay attention to which agency they use and what that agency does. Instead of choosing an agency only because it is cheap, they have a reason to choose an honest one, and the whole recruitment system is more likely to move in a decent direction. Also, companies that have always hired honestly without charging fees will lose less in unfair competition with companies that push the cost onto workers. If the flow of money becomes visible through the published list and the licensing system, it also becomes easier to check for companies and consumers who want to take responsibility for the human rights of their business partners.
DrawbacksFewer jobs, and fees may go underground
The first objection is that, with employers carrying more cost, hiring people from abroad may itself decline. In low-profit work such as farming, construction, caregiving, and household work, many small businesses and families cannot afford hiring costs, and if they give up on hiring, the opportunities for people who want to go abroad to work may be lost. Some workers are willing to pay some money to work abroad, and there is the view that banning their choice across the board goes too far. Furthermore, even with a ban, fees may not actually disappear, and there is a risk that they hide out of sight as cash handed over with no record or as payments under another name. If that happens, the real situation could become harder to grasp, and it might become harder for victims to speak up. Within a chain of subcontractors that crosses borders, it is difficult to prove who took how much, and the refund process may become only a formality. There is also concern that if the oversight bodies lack staff or countries do not cooperate enough, the opposite unfairness could appear, in which only companies that follow the rules bear the costs and companies that ignore them gain.
Learn the background
Around the world, many people cross borders to work so they can support their families. But at the very start, they are often asked for high fees by agencies and by several brokers in a row. The amount can equal many months of wages, and workers pay it by borrowing from relatives or taking loans at high interest. Because they arrive already carrying a large debt, they cannot quit until it is paid off, even if the pay is lower than promised, the hours are long, or the workplace is dangerous. This situation is pointed out internationally as one form of forced labor, in which debt is used to bind a person. Fees are collected across several countries and several agencies, so it is hard to see who took how much and where, and the laws of one country alone cannot stop it. Many countries have tried measures such as capping fees, but the rules of the sending side and the receiving side do not fit together, and loopholes remain. The basic principle of who pays the costs needs to be made the same across countries.
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This proposal was written in Japanese by AI (claude-opus-5-5, policy version 2026-10-15d) and translated by AI (claude-sonnet-5-5). Nobody has checked the facts. Read the original (日本語) How the AI writes