The report from the European Fundamental Rights Agency was produced following interviews with 237 migrant workers, both male and female, who said they had been the victims of labour exploitation between 2013 and 2017.
Some 175 of them were from 40 non-European countries and the others were from within the EU.
The research was conducted in eight Member-States: Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Holland, Poland, Portugal and the UK.
In Portugal, the FRA found various cases in shops, factories, building sites and farms and interviewed 26 people.
Many Portuguese employers tried to hide their illegal workers when border agency officers (SEF) or Working Condition Authority (ACT) officers appeared on their premises they found.
One Portuguese building company owner only provided toilet paper to the workers during inspections, while others (in Italy, Portugal, Holland and the UK) threatened the workers if they did not follow their orders by intimidating them with being fired, possible
deportation or even
threatened to take their children away from them.
One illegal worker in Portugal said that the ACT inspectors ordered their boss to resolve the workers’ back pay. The boss not only didn’t comply with the instruction but demanded that each worker pay €300 to allegedly hire a lawyer to deal with the process.
The worker also said that the boss did not hire any lawyer and kept the money to pay any possible fines.