(Courtesy by KISA)
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Employment The employment policy of the ministry of Labour and Social Insurance
Encourages discrimination & exploitation;
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The discrimination against migrants in employment is also evident by the fact that they do not have the right to freely change employers. They can change employers only in case of labour dispute and after permission by the Labour Disputes Committee or if they obtain a Release Agreement by their employer. This lead to the super exploitation of migrants workers. In 2007, after the implementation of the Long Term Residence Directive and in an attempt to prevent migrants from obtaining the long term residence status,  Release Agreement is valid only if signed at least one year prior to the expiration of date of their employment contracts, a condition, which also applies to their right to change employer in case of labour dispute. Thus, the report of any violation of their working rights became impractical.
The right to social insurance is another issue, which involves discrimination against migrants. Although migrants are required to contribute to the Social Insurance Fund, they can not benefit from nearly none of the rights and or benefits arising from it.
The above define migrants position and role in the economy of Cyprus as the most important source of cheap labour , enhancing their vulnerability.
Migrants, mainly third countries nationals. Working accidents are more frequent among migrant s than Cypriot, since they are exposed to health & safety risks at work. The outcomes of the investigations that are launched on the conditions under which working accidents occur are usually not unknown. Gender is important factor when examining issues concerning racism and discrimination. Female migrants are even more vulnerable to racism and discrimination than male migrants, since they are subjected to different kinds of discrimination: they suffer discrimination because of their gender, their nationality, the color of their skin, and their financial conditions. The majority of third-country migrant women are constrained to work as domestic workers, as a fact, which necessarily leads to the loss of any other identity they have. Domestic workers live in their employer’s house and thus, the competent authorities cannot perform  any monitoring or inspection of working, health and safety conditions.
The employment contracts of domestic workers are derived from the Civil Registry & Migration Department, instead of the Ministry of Labour and Social Insurance, and they contain very restrictive, discriminatory and exploitative terms and conditions of employment, such as forbiddance to join a trade union, longer working hours than the average, etc. in 2007, the salary of domestic workers was raised from £150/ 256 euro (since 1990) to £ 165/ 282euro, whilst the minimum wage was £ 409/699euro. In addition, their contracts are often breached by their employers, who frequently exercise both physical and psychological violence against them, including verbal and physical violence, sexual harassment and rape. The situation is of course much worse for victims of trafficking. Although the Trafficking Law was reviewed in July 2007 prohibiting all forms of trafficking, the policies of the government did not change at all and visa for Artistes were still issued by the Migration Department. Cyprus is used as a transit point of women to be trafficked elsewhere. In a report, 54 women complained to the authorities and relevant charges were pressed. There were also 105 arrest of persons engaged in cases linked to prostitution and sexual exploitation and 78 of them concerned particularly trafficking charges. According to the police data, 90 cases were brought to court, while 15 other cases were still being investigated at the end of 2007. Although the police acknowledged 54 trafficking victims, the Social Welfare Services dealt with 87 cases of victims of trafficking.
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