Migrant care workers came to help the UK. Now they’re trapped in debt bondage

With more than 105,000 vacancies, the Home Office introduced a visa scheme enabling care sector staff from overseas to come to the UK. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/The Guardian

Meera Stephen came to Britain with a big suitcase and even bigger dreams. The 27-year-old had left Kerala in south India to work at a care home in Manchester, one of thousands of migrant workers to come after a government recruitment drive to fill more than 100,000 vacancies in social care.

The job would pay £10 an hour – just above minimum wage. But it came at a price. In exchange for securing her employment, she would pay a recruitment agent 1.3m rupees – about £13,700.