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Thread on why the petition to restore the pre 2012 overseas domestic worker visa by @thevoiceofdws and supported by @Kalayaan is so important to preventing abuse and exploitation, in the hope that people will sign (if they havent already) and share widely https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/326765
The ODW worker visa is the main way migrant domestic workers come to work in the UK. It's quite widely used - in 2019 almost 23,000 visas were issued, around half to workers from the Philippines https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2020/9/8/the-domestic-workers-fleeing-modern-slavery-in-the-uk - other prevalent countries include India and Indonesia.
The original ODW visa was introduced in 1998 after campaigning from groups representing migrant domestic workers. It allowed domestic workers to change employer within the sector, renew their visa and apply for dependents to join them in the UK, and ultimately for settlement.
However, in 2012 changes were made to the visa, tying it to the employer the worker enters the country with and restricting it to a non-renewable six month period. These changes had very damaging effects in increasing exploitation.
