4 Wage theft and COVID-19 Besides a worsening of many migrant workers’ living and working conditions,12 the current COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a further exacerbation of cases of wage theft: there has been an intensification in the cases of wage theft experienced by migrant workers in low-paid jobs, with many employers taking advantage of the ongoing situation of emergency to further curtail migrant workers’ entitlements and elude their obligation to compensate salaries and contract termination dues. Over the past months, migrant workers have been exposed to increased physical and mental abuses, the unilateral renegotiation of salaries and to the sudden loss of employment, without the ability to rely on access to any forms of social security.13 They have been denied back-payments of the salaries owed to them and of any employment termination benefit. Low-wage migrant workers have thus been facing increased poverty and debt, stranded in countries of destination or returned empty-handed to their community of origin, where they may then face stigmatisation and discrimination.14 An article by Thomson Reuters Foundation,15 published last September, highlights the cases of many South Asian migrant workers who lost their job in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and did not receive the payment of their wages as well as of contract termination benefits from their employers. The article reports an increase by over three times in cases of wage theft between April and July, when compared with the same timeframe last year. An even more recent article,16 authored by migration journalist M.O.U. Bhuyan, tells the reality of over 17,000 Bangladeshi women migrant workers who, in the past six months, have returned home from their countries of employment due to the spread of COVID-19, in many cases forcibly and empty-handed. Accounts, collected through interviews as well as official data from authorities and institutions, depict realities of inhumanely long working hours (over 20 hours a day), increased workload, physical and mental abuses suffered at the hands of their employers and/or their families, and non-payment of their salaries, let alone of their overtime and dues upon contract termination. Claiming Justice Whilst at employment destination, low-wage migrant workers do not always have the ability to denounce cases of wage theft. This is, among other reasons, due to fear for their status, especially when employment is in the informal economy; to the power exercised by the employers, often withholding migrant workers’ passports since their arrival; to fear for the loss of their employment and the related ability to support families back home; to violent retaliation by employers themselves, when unpaid salaries are claimed; to the fear of incurring additional debt, for instance if charged overstay fines; to 12 Many migrant workers found themselves stranded in urban economic centres, living in small, crowded spaces that prevented them to be able to protect themselves appropriately from the risk of infection, with no or limited access to health care and basic services. Many have been dismissed, deprived of their accommodation and money for food, or forced to keep working in unsafe conditions. 13 World Bank, Covid-19 Crisis Through A Migration Lens, Migration and Development Brief 32, April 2020; International Organisation for Migration, Analytical Snapshot n#50, 26 June 2020 14 See for example: Kumar, C., and Mohanty, D., Migrant workers battle stigma, bias back home, The Hindustan Times, 11 May 2020; and World Health Organisation, Joint Press Statement: Stop Stigma and Discrimination, Spread Love, 23 June 2020 15 Anuradha, N. et al., South Asian migrant workers seek justice as wage theft worsens under coronavirus, Thomson Reuters Foundation, 09 September 2020 16 Bhuyan, M.O.U., Overworked, unpaid and abused, Bangladeshi women return from Middle East, Prothomalo, 08 October 2020