Valentine’s Day is a day associated with romance, family, and loved ones. Whilst usually debated in the realm of earnest romance versus corporate co-option for the sake of marketable holiday merchandise, at FLEX we want to use the opportunity to think about how visa systems increasingly keep migrant workers apart from those they love. 

Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to live your life privately without government interference. More than any piece of legislation or law, we instinctively believe that people have the right to have a family, love who they love and build a life with the people they choose to. It seems to be an essential right deeper than any law.

UK immigration laws and policies increasingly restrict migrants’ rights for dependents to join them. This  drives apart families, takes partners away from each other, leaves children without parents and imposes barriers to love. The UK wants migrant migrant workers (even if it is reluctant to admit this), but increasingly treats those workers as commodities rather than people with families and loved ones. 

Families are often divided by migration systems. Many migrant workers are required to live away from their families because either their visas do not allow them to bring dependents, the visa and associated costs are too high, or due to the short-term nature of transient visas.

Where safe and legal routes do not exist and journeys are taken outside of the formal migration system the predominance of single men arriving on their own is often highlighted. What is erased is that this happens because bringing partners and/or children adds complexity, cost and risk. Similarly erased are the migrant workers who enter on formal work routes which prevent a worker applying to bring their dependents. For example on the Overseas Domestic Worker route, where the majority of workers are women,who have been forced to leave their children behind, as they travel to live in the isolation of someone else’s home, looking after someone else’s kids. The organisation Kalayaan, which provides advice and support to migrant domestic workers in the UK, has said that it is common for domestic workers to describe their decision to migrate for work as having ‘sacrificed myself for my family’. 

The absence of migrant workers’ usual support structures, combined with the pressure to provide financial support for their families back home and vulnerabilities created by migration itself, can make them more likely to accept exploitative conditions for fear of losing their job and failing to provide for their families. In many cases, by challenging their employer and/or visa sponsor, they risk cutting off their income that their family is relying on, and/or being deported. 

Stripping away the right to family life from migrant workers represents an extreme form of commodifying people. Migrant workers deserve the same right to enjoy love and family life as any other individual. When migrants are separated from their families, they face emotional stress and social isolation, which can make them more vulnerable to exploitation by abusive employers or sponsors. 

In developing safer routes, policymakers must recognise that the ability for migrants to bring their families when they migrate  plays a crucial role in enhancing their psychological and social well-being, which in turn can mitigate the risk of exploitation. The presence of family members not only recognises migrant workers as people with the right to a family life, but can serve as an informal watchdog against exploitative practices. In this way, overhauling this part of the UK visa system is both good policy and an appeal to the heart.

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