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Foreign Workers Forced to Pay $10,000 in Agent Fees to Come to Israel
Although the law forbids the collection of such fees from migrant workers, they have steadily been rising, especially for those employed as caregivers.
A new survey by an NGO supporting migrant workers in Israel reveals that all who entered the country in recent years paid a high agent fee. The survey, conducted by Kav LaOved Worker's Hotline and reported here for the first time, found that on average, the fee paid in 2015 was $10,700, as compared to $6,000 a decade ago — an increase of nearly 80 percent. The law expressly forbids collection of an agent fee from migrant workers.
Citizens of the Philippines, who comprise about a third of the caregivers for the elderly in Israel, paid $8,300. Caregivers from India and Sri Lanka paid $12,000, or 50 percent more. The survey also shows that 46 percent of migrant caregivers who entered Israel in 2015 paid part or all of the agent fee in Israel, compared to 38 percent during 2007 to 2010. This undermines the authorities’ claim that it is hard to find evidence of offenses since the transactions are not conducted in Israel. The survey was conducted among 265 migrant workers who came to Israel in 2014 and 2015.
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