Low-wage migrant workers commonly encounter abuses of their labor rights during the migration process. These abuses can include deceptive practices by recruitment agencies, underpayment, poor and unsafe working conditions, and other exploitative practices that may amount to criminal forced labor or human trafficking offenses.
Over the past five years, digital technology initiatives have been developed to inform, empower, and connect migrant workers in new ways. These include consumer reporting platforms that pool data on migrants’ experiences with recruitment agencies, within supply chains, and more. Technology offers the promise that the worker’s voice is central to their migration and employment decisions, and allows them to share their experiences in order to reduce exploitation.
This report examines five areas in which digital platforms are being developed to protect and empower migrant workers, and considers practical, legal, ethical, and technological implications, and the risks associated with them.
The report concludes that digital technology cannot fix structural inequalities, missing institutional capacity, or a lack of political will to address labor exploitation. But when used responsibly and with worker protection and outcomes as a priority, it offers new and amplified opportunities for migrant worker empowerment and justice.
Download
-
Transformative Technology for Migrant Workers: Opportunities, Challenges, and Risks (911.91 Kb pdf file)
Download the 54-page report.
Read more
Voices
How New Technologies Can Help—and Hurt—Migrant Workers

Technology has enormous potential to improve the situation of the most disadvantaged workers, particularly migrants and refugees in low-wage jobs. But it can also exacerbate power imbalances that lead to worker exploitation.
A Nation of Immigrants
What the U.S. Still Owes Undocumented Workers

In the United States today, “essential” workers are more likely to be immigrants, and many of them are undocumented. Given all that these people have risked to keep society afloat, they deserve far more support.
A Holistic Answer
Demanding a Just COVID-19 Response

As our grantees, partners, and allies work tirelessly to reduce the damage brought on by the pandemic, we at Open Society are committed to long-term reforms that will address the structural injustices worsened by the virus.