In my thirty-year career as a photojournalist and filmmaker, I have traveled to nearly seventy countries to gather stories. My calling is to investigate, document, and expose the disturbing truths around modern slavery, human trafficking, and exploitation. And yet, even I was shocked to learn of the exploitation happening right on my own doorstep here in the United Kingdom.

There is a huge demand for people willing to work in care, a vocation that many native Brits find unattractive. This has been amplified since Brexit, as there has been a significant drop in the movement of European Union nationals coming to work in the sector. The latest government figures show almost 106,000 visas were granted to care workers in 2023, a number that has tripled from the same period in 2022. People from India, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Ghana, Bangladesh, and Pakistan topped the list of nationalities traveling to the United Kingdom to plug the labor gap. Although there are some safeguards in place, many of those coming to work in the care sector have a poor understanding of their rights.

Hidden in plain sight, foreign health aides in UK care homes face exploitation.