When Ismael found himself sleeping rough at York station in the late October cold he struggled to understand how an opportunity to pick berries 7,000 miles from his home had so quickly ended there.
He had left Indonesia less than four months earlier, in July 2022. He was 18 and ready for six months of hard work on a British farm to save for a science degree. “I thought the UK was the best place to work because I could save up a little money and help my parents,” he said.
He had no idea the picking season was already well under way or that he would shortly find himself with no work to do and heavy debts back home.
Ismael’s experience is forming the basis of a test case against the government’s seasonal worker scheme, which argues that the scheme’s design breached his right to be protected from modern slavery and labour exploitation.
The case, brought by the Anti Trafficking and Labour Exploitation Unit (ATLEU) against the Home Office and Defra, is a civil claim for damages which will say he ended up effectively stuck in the UK in debt bondage.
As well as compensation, the unit is looking for a declaration that the scheme breached the teenager’s human rights, which they hope will force the government to adjust it.
Ismael, whose name has been changed as his identity is protected in the case, said he spent two days sleeping rough at York station before finding an underground recruiter on Facebook. He was lent the train fare to Newcastle to take up a job in a Chinese takeaway using his passport as collateral.
Ismael said he was paid £300 a week, working more than 14 hours a day as a chef’s assistant. “There was an empty storage room that just had bins with rubbish and they asked me to live there,” he said. “It was cold, I had no heater or anything.”
He is one of more than 34,000 people who were given a seasonal worker visa in 2022. The scheme was expanded rapidly after a pilot in 2019, despite concerns that it left people vulnerable to exploitation.
More than 200 Indonesian fruit pickers who went to the UK in 2022 asked for diplomatic help after facing difficulties. Many arrived late in the season and found there was not enough work on farms to repay their substantial debts.
Ismael said that in total the cost to him of going to the UK was more than £4,200, which included local hidden fees, such as the down payment to a local broker to guarantee the job. He said he borrowed money from family and that a local recruitment broker lent him £2,500 for the final payment to cover flights and visas as well as other costs.
He said his parents’ home was taken as surety on the debt as well as several original identity and qualification documents that he needed for working again in Indonesia.
The agent, he said, began chasing him for repayments on WhatsApp within a week of arriving. But he was not making the money he hoped.
He said that when work dried up on the first farm he was transferred to another, footing the cost of a £250 taxi because nobody explained transport options. It was just halfway through his expected six months of picking when there was no more work at the final farm, which meant he found himself in York station with just £13 in his pocket.
Around this time, he said, two debt collectors were sent to his parents’ home in Indonesia and “stayed for 24 hours in my garage so my parents couldn’t go anywhere”. He said they were now paying monthly 20% interest on the loan and he felt unable to return.
“I feel like I am in slavery at the moment because all my original documents are being held by the agent, which means if I come back to my country I wouldn’t work because companies need my original documents,” he said.
He said the seasonal worker scheme succeeded for those in countries closer to Britain. “Some of my friends that came here from Kazakhstan, from Ukraine, they paid only for their visa and their ticket. There were no more fees or charges [in their home countries], which means that they could pay [it back] within the first month of work. But it’s really different for us. We need to pay a lot.”
He now lives in London, sharing a small loft with seven other people. Initially he worked cash in hand but has recently been afraid to do that after friends were arrested in an immigration raid.
His initial application to be recognised as a victim of trafficking has been turned down, despite no dispute over its facts.
Ismael’s lawyer, Jamila Duncan-Bosu at ATLEU, said her client’s situation was far from unique and she was looking for others to join his case.
“He’s in such a catch-22 because if he goes back without paying the debt he’s basically not able to work or get into education and that debt will continue to get racked up and he’ll have no way of paying it. Meanwhile he’s stuck. He’s in the UK and he’s essentially been trafficked as a result of being in this position of debt bondage,” she said.
A government spokesperson said: “The welfare of visa holders is of paramount importance, including in the seasonal workers scheme, and we are clamping down on poor working conditions and exploitation.
“We have established a new team within the Home Office compliance network which focuses on ensuring sponsors are abiding by workers’ rights, and will always take decisive action where we believe abusive practices are taking place or the conditions of the route are not met.”