EMPLOYERS are giving their migrant staff fake certificates for skills they do not possess, says the Fiji Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Commission.
Commission representative Mithleshni Gurdayal told a migrant workers’ workshop in Lautoka yesterday that migrant workers were not aware their employers were doing this.
“Sometimes, employers come to us and say they want a tile layer or a mechanic,” Ms Gurdayal said.
“They don’t know the job, but their certificate says they can do it. So, we ask the complainants, ‘do you know this job?’ And they say they were told that they would be able to do it.
“The recruiter is misleading them and allegedly making fake certificates showing this person can do this job.”
She said that underscored the need for stakeholders to collectively investigate those incidents.
“If the recruiter is doing this, making fake certificates, he needs to be taken to task and believe me, some local recruiters are also involved.
“And that’s where it could be human trafficking.”
Ms Gurdayal said some employers confiscated their migrant staff’s passports.
“Confiscation of passports was quite a thing when I started dealing with workplace complaints and I gathered that after we started doing media campaigns and started talking about the fact that it’s a crime, we confiscated documents, and we didn’t get those issues anymore.”
