The Fight to End Recruitment Abuse in Rural Mexico Daniel Pena - The Huffington Post
go to original December 9, 2014

Contratados: A 'Yelp' for Migrant Workers (cdmigrante)

In rural Mexico, recruitment abuse is big business and one of the more common mechanisms of exploitation used to take advantage of workers in communities with limited access to information and resources. Oftentimes, those who do make it to the U.S. work for limited pay or no pay at all, falling into lives of indentured servitude under the very recruiters who contracted them who also charge workers for their H-2B visas, which are illegal to sell under U.S. law. Oftentimes, worker's passports are held from them or destroyed altogether to prevent them from going back home. And they become stuck in the U.S., undocumented against their will.

There's a movement happening in Mexico to fight such abuse. El Centro de Los Derechos Migrante, based in Mexico City, has launched Contratados, a program specifically directed at H-2 and J-1 visa workers to shield them from recruitment abuse. What's fascinating about Contratados is that the program is an interactive website and hotline that helps workers avoid exploitation, but the program also uses other tools to keep workers informed: comic books and audio novelas among other interactive means to help workers navigate the recruitment and employment process in the United States. Similar to websites and apps like Yelp, Contratados workers can rate and review recruiters and employers to bring some transparency to their decisions.

Check out the video above, directed by Mexico City based Lindsay Van Dyke, of a true story about recruitment abuse

Read the whole story at The Huffington Post

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