The United Kingdom’s Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) has signed agreements with the governments of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to strengthen protections for workers arriving in the UK, Recruiter reported on May 30.

Landmark agreements were ratified in the capital cities of Bishkek and Tashkent during a five-day fact-finding mission conducted by GLAA representatives.

In Kyrgyzstan, the agreement was struck between the GLAA and the Centre for Employment of Citizens, which falls under the Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Migration.

In Uzbekistan, the memorandum was inked by the GLAA on behalf of the UK government and the Central Asian country’s Agency of External Labour Migration, which sits under the Ministry of Employment and Poverty Reduction.

A priority in the mutual co-operation covered by the agreements will reportedly be information sharing on recruitment agencies sending workers from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to the UK.

The signatories will cooperate to establish where recruitment agencies are used in the recruitment process, whether they are operating within the rules, both in the recruiting country and the UK, and whether they are placing their workers at greater risk of exploitation.

In both Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, government agencies will operate some recruiting and pre-departure activities normally conducted by private recruitment agencies.

Darryl Dixon, who signed the agreements on behalf of the GLAA, told Recruiter: “We saw a sharp upturn in the number of seasonal workers coming to the UK from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan in 2022 and our intelligence indicates that this is only going to keep rising in the next few years.

“As an organisation which exists to protect vulnerable workers, we are keen to ensure that everyone who arrives on the scheme leaves with a positive experience of working on UK farms and are not exploited for their labour.”

More than 6,000 visas were issued to workers from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan as part of the Seasonal Worker visa route in 2022.

Uzbekistan was the UK’s second-biggest source of seasonal workers last year after Ukraine, with Kyrgyzstan the fourth largest.

The UK has struggled to find enough workers for sectors such as farm fruit-picking since a big fall-off in the number of EU member state citizens coming to the country for such work since Brexit.