6 services, among which healthcare and education; it is stealing people’s rights to life and to dignity as well as to justice. It is also depriving children from life opportunities, condemning future generations to pay for the mistakes of those who came before them. An Additional Dimension to the Urgency of Addressing Wage Theft A worrisome economic outlook on employment prospects for the next months, makes the importance of stopping wage theft and returning to migrant workers their own money now more pressing than ever. The International Labour Organisation suggests that “[t]he estimated total working-hour losses in the second quarter of 2020 (relative to the fourth quarter of 2019) are now 17.3 per cent, or 495 million full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs […]. Lower-middle-income countries are the hardest hit, having experienced an estimated decline in working hours of 23.3 per cent (240 million FTE jobs) in the second quarter of the year.”21 The World Bank22 estimates that, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, there will be a rise in the percentage of global population falling into extreme poverty, the majority of which living in South Asia. An article authored by Furceri et al. 23 warns against the peril of increased inequalities resulting from this ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, of which low-wage migrant workers have already borne a disproportionate share of the economic consequences.24 The article suggests that on the one hand, health protection measures enacted by governments across the globe are likely to benefit the rich more than the poor, unless an adequate policy response is put in place to mitigate the effects; on the other hand, employment prospects are likely to reduce for vulnerable groups, such as low-wage migrant workers. The likely inability of many returned low-wage migrant workers to find new employment in the coming months adds a key dimension to the urgency of addressing cases of wage theft: the uncertainty brought by the COVID-19 pandemic makes the money earned by them even more necessary than before. To face the consequences of job losses, reduced working hours and the prospect of continued unemployment, in addition to pre-existing insecurity and debt, coupled with inadequate social support in countries of origin and destination,25 migrant workers must have their salaries and dues swiftly and effectively returned as soon as possible. 21 International Labour Organisation, ILO Monitor: COVID-19 and the world of work. Sixth edition Updated estimates and analysis, 23 September 2020 22 Lackner, C. et al., Updated estimates of the impact of COVID-19 on global poverty: The effect of new data, World Bank Blogs, 07 October 2020 23 Furceri, D., et al., COVID-19 will raise inequality if past pandemics are a guide, Vox EU & CEPR, 08 May 2020 24 See for example: Subramaniam, G., The Compounding Impacts of COVID-19 on Migrant Workers Across Asia (Pt 1), Institute for Human Rights and Business, 22 July 2020 25 Strauss, D., Tens of millions of migrant workers face job losses and poverty, Financial Times, 24 June 2020