New App for Mexican Migrant Workers Fights Scammers Dangling US Jobs Karl Baker - Christian Science Monitor
go to original October 17, 2014

CDM has rolled out a website and smartphone app that intend to operate as a sort of Yelp for migrant workers, called Contratados.org.

Adarely Ponce Hernandez watched closely as a job recruiter passed through her rural Mexican town of Chapulhuacán two years ago. The recruiter represented a company called Chamba Mexico and promised high wages for legal temporary work in the United States – an enticing offer in a region where nearly 80 percent of the population lives in poverty.

But Ms. Hernandez dealt with a headhunter like this one in the past – who stole nearly $200 from her in the form of recruiting fees. So, she decided to stay away from Chamba Mexico. It was a wise choice.

Not long after this recruiter left Chapulhuacan, the company shuttered its operations nationwide, and its employees disappeared. An estimated 5,000 Mexicans invested between $560 and $880, according to government reports, in hopes of securing a job that paid as much as $19 per hour.

“There are a lot of recruiters that arrive and deceive people,” Hernandez says. “They say that in order to get you out, you have to pay 1,000 pesos [$75] or 2,000 pesos [$150] to be put on a waiting list,” she says.

Although it’s illegal for recruiters to charge fees to prospective migrants, 58 percent of H-2 workers reported paying for the opportunity to be matched with a US employer, according to a report from Centro de los Derechos del Migrante (CDM), a migrant advocacy organization based in Mexico City. So to help workers avoid scams, CDM has rolled out a website and smartphone app that intend to operate as a sort of Yelp for migrant workers, called Contratados.org.

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