[rippercushions]

The workers have often had to pay huge fees to brokers to score the job in the first place, often including taking out large loans that must be paid back with the job's income.

On arrival, the worker realizes that everything they have been told is a lie. Their passport is confiscated and they are told that, if they try to run away to their embassy etc, goons will go to their family to extort the money owed for the loans by any means necessary, including torture and death.

Would you still call this a "voluntary arrangement"?

[eru]

> Would you still call this a "voluntary arrangement"?

Perhaps not for the first guy to ever fall for this. But existing workers are still communicating with the folks back home, so prospective new workers now what to expect and what to believe and not to believe.

I agree that they aren't treated well; but we can't ignore that the situation back home is often even worse.

[rippercushions]

There are a lot of poor villages in Pakistan or Nepal, a lot of brokers, a lot of different lies to tell and a lot of suckers born every minute. And, of course, there's the odd village boy who beats the odds, strikes it rich (often by getting into a position where he can exploit others, eg as a labor broker), builds a big-ass house and becomes inspiration for others to follow in his footsteps.

[fryry]

No, especially the element of having goons back home to coerce the family sounds like actually slavery. I double check these days. Westerners try to make charity cases out of people from the developing world that are just trying to make a buck like we all do.