Reducing the mistreatment of migrant workers

Millions of migrant workers leave their home countries each year in search of better opportunities, yet many face abuse, exploitation, and even violence behind closed doors. While improving and enforcing labour laws in destination countries is essential, such reforms are often difficult to achieve and enforce in practice, leaving many workers unprotected.
So what can be done? This policy brief presents striking evidence from a randomised controlled trial involving nearly 2,000 Filipino domestic workers: a simple intervention – photo and small gift with their employer – significantly reduced mistreatent. By humanising workers and reducing social distance, the intervention led to sizable declines in physical abuse and sexual harassment and improvements in worker conditions, even two years later. These findings highlight a powerful insight: even in highly constrained settings, small, scalable interventions can complement broader reforms can make a real difference improving migrant workers’ lives