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Ask HN: Remote Work for Refugees and Asylum Seekers?
33 points by sarabad2021 on Sept 8, 2021 | hide | past | favorite | 27 comments
There really needs to be a freelance job board or something that allows refugees and asylum seekers in dangerous countries to do remote work and get paid safely (Bitcoin for instance) so they can support themselves. Imagine being an engineer hiding out in Afghanistan right now with no way to support yourself because you can't "verify your identity". You may have to hide for years or face death. That's a big issue that needs to be solved. My question is has this been solved and I just can't find anything? Or is it just something that can't be solved and we leave these people helpless? Seems like a major humanitarian issue that could be easily solved.


That raises some interesting legal questions.

If you pay to someone who "can't verify their identity" you are basically paying some anonymous person or institution.

Is that legal? In the US? In Europe? I have no idea. Anybody in the know?

I know that in Europe, depending on which country you pay to, you have to do different types of paperwork. So someone in country X in Europe has to do different type of reporting whether they pay someone in X, some other European country, in the USA or in Ireland etc ...

I wonder what the tax authorities would say if you report payments to an "unknown" person in and "unknown" destination. There probably is not even a form for this that you could use.


Absolutely true, if we do not do the KYC dance, we will be accused of illegal money transfers.

Image how easy it would be come to launder money with anonymous payments.


Oh hell no. You make a payment to some web developer who you thought was a refugee/asylum seeker, but couldn't verify their status. Let's say things go great.

Then let's say that person ends up getting denied for asylum seeker status, because they worked for the Taliban - let's say that part is even wrong, they never did that, or they did it under duress - let's say all that matters is that they showed up in this database.

Now you've just given a cryptocurrency payment to someone who was denied asylum seeker status, and because of an (incorrect) database entry, it looks like you've funded a terrorist organization.

No, thank you. You'd have to be extremely naive to believe somebody, then pay them in cryptocurrency because you believed their sob story about being an asylum seeker. You're likely actually funding somebody who might be in danger - because they were captured and forced to do work for some regime you don't agree with.

"I'm in North Korea and I need you to pay in bitcoin!" - That money isn't going to them, it's going to the North Korean state.

"Help me, I'm a computer science student of Kabul University!" - Congratulations, your btc payments funded the Taliban. They ARE a CS student of Kabul University, but they've been captured and are forced to work for the Taliban.

Nobody should even THINK about doing this.


Why does it have to be specifically for refugees and asylum seekers? Wouldn't any job board that pays in crypto work for this use case? Being less targeted has the advantage that you already have the biggest list of possible jobs available.

From a quick look https://cryptojobslist.com has a "pays in crypto" label on each job.


I'm guessing these companies still want to verify your identity even though they pay in crypto.


I promise you any Afghan developer reading this would prefer Visa sponsorship to get him/her and their family out of Afghanistan and the miserable refugee camps in nearby countries.

The US has a very high pay ceiling for H1B but in most other Western countries it should be feasible to do Visa sponsorship for an Afghan or Syrian web developer and his family.

I know Danish companies who hired Syrian engineers and it's been working well for them.

Also just a hint when hiring from Muslim countries: Islamic fundamentalism and bigotry is not an ideology of old men with one foot in the grave. Most Islamic bigots are young English-speaking tech-savvy people. Make a simple background check so you don't end up hiring a bigot.


> The US has a very high pay ceiling for H1B but in most other Western countries it should be feasible to do Visa sponsorship for an Afghan or Syrian web developer and his family.

And then you'll see people from the countries with a lower bar whine on this very forum of low pay...


Yes, anyone would prefer that. It's just no reality. Realistically most people won't get that and will be stuck where they are. We need real solutions.


I would advise against this.

If a bank won't let you wire money there, I don't think regulators will look kindly on you using crypto to bypass that. So good luck raising money or selling the company with what looks like illegal activity in your accounting books. And that's if the contractor you're hiring is "clean". If he's found to have ties to an organization on a watch list, you're looking at federal charges.

Now, to be completely honest, I have reasons to be skeptical of a lot of asylum claims from Afghanistan, seeing how the ANA just flat out abandoned their bases and surrendered without a fight in mere weeks. I'm wondering if a lot of these able bodies young "refugees" men had dual allegiances the whole time, seeing how they welcomed the Taliban with open arms as soon as the (US taxpayer funded) checks stopped coming in.

It sounds like these asylum claims would be a perfect opportunity to hustle western passports. Wouldn't be the first time [0]

[0] https://www.politico.eu/article/migration-fake-syrian-passpo...


Couple of thoughts come to mind.

- I think the closest thing to this would be something like the silkroad or whatever it's modern incantation is.

- I think solving a problem like this would be more about branding and abuse than technical. Abuse will be a hard since a platform like this will have to be censorship resistant by design.

- why do I want to hire a refugee in the conditions that you describe? I'm running a business here and it's difficult to sell me on refugee talent. (Not trying to be callous, genuinely curious)

- Finally, is their real problem work? I think the thought you have is noble, but I suggest reaching out to refugee communities (no idea how to do this) and asking them what are the things that you need right now.

The questions I have are out of naiveté so if I am mistaken please point out my mistakes.


I think emulating existing darknet market infrastructure makes sense to address a couple of the issues you mentioned- like public reviews & messaging for employment + moderation & escrow/multisig for transactions.

+ your third point, I think another issue is basically verification: what's stopping cheap, non-refugee laborers from scooping job postings from refugees? I don't think it would be possible to verify the refugee status of someone without leaking identifying info.

I guess your last suggestion sounds like the best thing to do.


> what's stopping cheap, non-refugee laborers from scooping job postings from refugees? I don't think it would be possible to verify the refugee status of someone without leaking identifying info.

I think problem is solved by the fact if you aren't a refugee you are probably looking for work through normal channels. A job board like this is for people who are either doing something illegal (as a symptom of being a gov resistant platform), or who have no other options due to circumstances.


I'm not sure about employing a person anonymously, but I would expect it is more viable for a US/EU/etc company to purchase a deliverable instead. I'm unaware of any actual requirement for companies to verify that the foreign entity is legit if they are simply purchasing a "product" from them, at least. If our hypothetical engineer simply presented himself as an Afghan consulting company and sold code, I doubt anyone would question anything, especially if the invoices looked legit. Being able to sell code for crypto anonymously is my dream though, I'd love to see someone work that out.


So what do you mean by "Verify identity"? If someone doesn't have an address but has identification to prove they are a certain age there are work arounds to hiring them and paying them as an Independent contractor in whatever country they are in.

I'm not sure how legal it is, and you would be subject to some risk. But I know there are a ton of companies working with "VAs" Virtual assistances that are based out of the Philipense and Pakistan where they help with Lead Generation and other online work. They are paid out through tools like Wise or paypal.


I like the spirit, but you are only looking at it from the refugee perspective.

The amount of hurdles & risks the employer takes is pretty high (e.g. taxes, ID verification, risk of the refugee getting their claim denied, etc).

Seems your use case would be one-time work (e.g. need a static website for my shop) AND willingness for the employer to pay using Bitcoin (or other 'safe' method as you describe it). The overlap of those two seems very narrow, although the cost of an experiment to set it up is pretty low if you wanna venture into it.


I had the same idea.

I have been helping refugees that were coworkers back when I was in Afghanistan. They are all employable and competent in freelance work. Right now they lack the basics (Internet, laptop). I plan to provide them with what they need as soon as their local government (in this case, France) let them work. PM me if you want to share ideas.


If you are truly hiding and fearful for your life, remote work is not on your mind. Even if you get paid in BTC, what good will it do ? The only goal is to get out of there. Period. yes you need to feed yourself while trying to stay safe but remote work with BTC payment is not the solution for that.


You'd be surprised how hard it is to "Get out of there" and basically impossible for many asylum seekers who've been forgotten about. Hiding out for decades. When getting out fails you need a backup and with the global digital market it should totally be possible to find remote work without ID. Also, I agree that cash over crypto is ideal but it's a situation without many options so you'd likely have to make crypto work.


I like the spirit. How would you confirm that only applicants from affected populations take the jobs?


Would you need to confirm this? I think the benefit would be that refugees would have an option that would allow them to work, not that you could necessarily ensure you were hiring only refugees.


So now we just have a job board without id verification.


Yes, because the ones oppressing the refugees may be the ones posing as refugees. Of course nothing is as clean and easy we would like it to be.


Unless it's for charity, I don't know who'd hire someone like this over another remote worker in a less precarious and unstable situation. If it's for charity, there are more efficient ways to help people.

Like the other commenter said, I like the spirit. But I don't see it happening, I'm afraid.


Asylum seekers usually don't have the right to work until their request for asylum is approved.

Paying freelancers abroad could work - but what happens if they don't deliver? Or disappear with your data or code?

Bitcoin doesn't solve issues of legal liability.


Have you ever tried to get work though Elance etc? Even with non-anonymous people and proper banking the trust (and pay) is through the floor. I see no way anything like this would work in practice for legal activities.


There is a startup Workaround Online (https://wao.ai/) that provides refugees with freelance work. Not sure if they are still around.


What about fiverr and outsourcing ?

You could sign up and outsource to the country of your choice




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