Accessing Justice in Abjection Understanding wage theft requires an inherent understanding of structures of inequality and the power dynamics of employment that migrant workers are, willingly or unwillingly, victims of. Civil society actors, community organisations and grassroot-level interactions with migrants themselves reveal the deep-rooted inequalities migrant workers face in terms of the nature of work, the nature of their stay at the destination, their status as migrants, their gender, among other layers of intersectionality. Needless to say, the pandemic exposed structural inequalities despite state rhetoric and piecemeal efforts to prove otherwise. Since the start of the pandemic in 2019, the precarity and uncertainty migrant workers faced on a daily basis as an underlying aspect of their existence, became exposed and magnified in society and among state actors. The Justice for Wage Theft campaign has explicitly emphasised upon the remedies to accessing justice for wage theft victims – many of whom continue to face bottlenecks and obstacles in doing so, one year into the reporting of their case to the platform, civil society organisations, or state actors. At such a juncture, it becomes pertinent to recognize socio-economic inequalities that contribute to the lack of access to justice for migrant workers. These inequalities include education levels, health conditions, employment and housing conditions, income inequality, which are important markers of well-being. Other structural factors include complexity of the justice system (and their nature of their legal case), time, individual capability, geographical and physical constraints and the presence of social networks or supportive ecosystems. Discourse on how access to justice is an integral aspect in “promoting inclusiveness, growth, and mutual well-being” is predominant within global and regional consultation processes as well as state policy. However, without prioritising rights-based migration governance and the political will to facilitate the process of institutionalising inclusive strategies for migrant workers, this would remain a far-off goal. In the present context, states do not require ‘convincing’ of the importance or relevance of access to justice for migrant workers - the concept is very much understood among state actors, it is the attitude of apathy that allows the lack of prioritisation. State actors consequently need to be goaded to create and ensure concrete, sustainable, flexible and rights-based solutions and alternatives. “Inequality is both a driver and a consequence of lack of effective access to justice and therefore actionable policies focused on meeting people’s legal and justice needs are an important mechanism to intervene in this negative self-reinforcing dynamic ” (OECD, 2019) With respect to wage theft, the recognition of inequalities must then be succeeded by an honest attempt at ensuring access to justice and grievance redressal for those who have been treated unjustly, viz., victims of wage theft and abuse. Access to courts and police stations, documentation and proof of violations, cost and duration of litigation, language barriers, status dependency on employers, requirements for in person testimony are among the chief challenges to justice in the context of migration. In the context of the pandemic, state machinery, dependent upon bureaucratic procedure, faced changes in day-to-day functioning (leading to shutdowns in certain countries) as well as discovered new modes of engagement. Among the biggest changes observed in the legal system was the potential of technology and its various benefits such as outreach and security. One of the primary demands of the Justice for Wage Theft campaign was in ensuring a transitional justice mechanism (1st and 2nd Appeal). However, since the start of the campaign, there has been hardly any 4