“Bosses said I'd lose visa if I complained - care worker”

A migrant social care worker has said her employer threatened to cancel her visa if she complained about being forced to work long hours without any days off.

Sophia - not her real name - said she paid more than £2,000 in fees to a South Yorkshire care company that sponsored her visa to come to the UK from Zimbabwe to work for them in 2023…

Sophia came to the UK on a health and care worker visa, designed to help plug staffing gaps in the sector.

She said she was placed in an unregistered, multi-occupancy house and when she complained that she was paying too much for the accommodation was told she was "not grateful".

Sophia added that she was threatened with having her Certificate of Sponsorship terminated - a document provided by an employer that is required for the visa to be valid…

She felt unable to seek any other employment because her visa depended on the care company…

The union Unison has called for the government to take control of issuing Certificates of Sponsorship, to stop individual care companies having "an enormous amount of power" over workers…