Praveen Kolluguri & Jessie Hoskin — writing on behalf of the collaboration between India Labour Solidarity and the End Not Defend Campaign
15/08/2025
Many Indian and other international students and graduates are increasingly working in the UK’s hospitality sector, where they face a serious and rising risk of sexual harassment. The restrictive visa regime, developed under the hostile environment, is a key structural factor contributing to these risks.
The rise in international students in low-wage hospitality roles can be attributed to Brexit, which led to an exodus of European workers, and to visa policy changes that have increasingly directed migrant workers into precarious employment. Migrant workers, particularly students and recent graduates, are concentrated in roles across hotels, catering, cafés, and restaurants, typically under zero-hour or highly insecure contracts. In London, migrants make up 63% of the hospitality workforce, and nationally, 62% of workers in the sector are women, a demographic combination especially vulnerable to exploitation and harassment.
Hospitality is already notorious for its low wages, exploitative conditions, and inadequate enforcement. A recent Sheffield Hallam University study (2024) found that workers on precarious contracts are 60% more likely to experience sexual harassment, with women reporting harassment at twice the rate of men.
A major driver of this precarity is the UK’s hostile environment, introduced by Liam Byrne, Labour immigration minister in 2007 and then further expanded by Home Secretary Theresa May in 2012 to describe immigration policies designed to make life in the UK “as difficult as possible” for undocumented migrants. These policies have since expanded and now include restrictive visa conditions, heightened surveillance, and reduced access to public services, including health services, legal aid and labour protections. The continuation of this policy, alongside anti-migrant rhetoric across the political spectrum, is creating unsafe conditions for foreign workers and immigrants in the UK, as evidenced by the racist attacks on migrant communities during the summer of 2024.
Back in 2012, international students had access to Post Study Work (PSW) visas, which allowed them to stay and work for two years after graduation. They needed to earn £35,000 in the last 12 months of PSW, far above the UK’s average salary at the time, to remain on a work visa( initially a 2 year one followed by a 3 year one) that led to settlement. The PSW was then withdrawn in 2012, and students needed sponsorship to remain after graduating. With few employers willing to sponsor graduates, particularly during economic downturns, many international students lost viable pathways to stay in the UK and started choosing other countries for their education. While the Graduate Visa has since been reinstated under pressure from universities, who were losing a valuable source of income in the form of international students who paid three times the fees of domestic student, the barriers to switching into skilled work visas remain extremely high: employers face sponsorship license fees of over £10,000 per candidate, pricing many out of the system and leaving graduates vulnerable to exploitative, short-term roles.
As a result, graduate visa holders now make up a large portion of those working in hospitality, where there are few routes to progression, rights enforcement, or job security. Migrants on care, domestic, or skilled worker visas are often tied to a specific sponsor or employer, meaning they risk their immigration status if they leave or report abuse. The pressure to endure abuse, rather than risk deportation or becoming undocumented, is a key feature of this system.
Amritha J, a member of our collective who works in the hospitality sector, shared:
‘The system is designed to exploit workers’ precarity and exhaustion. We often have to tolerate unwanted touches and misogynistic banter just to keep our hours and avoid being labelled as the problem.”
Many migrants, especially from countries like India, take out loans or rely on family savings to come to the UK and face exorbitant costs for further Visa extensions. Returning without repaying those debts is unthinkable for many. These economic realities, combined with restrictive immigration policy, create a perfect storm of dependency, silence, and abuse. As FLEX (Focus on Labour Exploitation) reports, 44% of women and non-binary workers in hospitality have experienced sexual harassment, with many reporting fear of losing work or hours if they spoke up. The “Rights and Risks” report confirms that fear of losing immigration status is a major reason why migrant workers do not report abuse. We have seen similar examples in other sectors, like care, where rogue employers are exploiting workers based on their vulnerability.
Intersectional vulnerabilities based on gender, race, nationality, caste and visa status compound the risk. Zero-hour contracts and restrictive visa regimes give employers all the power and workers none. Sexual harassment thrives in this vacuum. Migrants often lack knowledge of their rights or are afraid to access support services for fear of immigration consequences. Labour enforcement agencies, meanwhile, lack gender-sensitive or immigration-informed tools for intervention.
We call on policymakers, trade unions, universities, and employers to take urgent action to protect migrant workers especially students and graduates by:
Banning zero-hour contracts and all forms of exploitative casual labour.
Breaking the link between immigration status and employment so workers can safely leave abusive jobs.
Guaranteeing immigration protection for any worker who reports exploitation or harassment.
Ensuring free, independent legal advice for all migrant workers.
Scrapping employer-tied visa sponsorships and replacing them with routes that put worker rights first.
Funding grassroots and community organisations that migrants turn to when formal systems fail.
Creating clear, sector-wide harassment protocols that prevent abuse instead of reacting after the harm is done
As migrant communities continue to bear the brunt of Britain’s economic model, we must move from “defending” exploitation to ending it.
We would love to hear from you if you work in hospitality, as your insights would be invaluable in guiding our advocacy work.
