Don't take it lying down: visa scams and prostate checks Artwork

The Black Paper

Hosted by Ndukwe Onuoha and Cheta Nwanze, The Black Paper looks at UK politics through the lens of African heritage communities, many of whom are recent migrants.

All Episodes

The Black Paper

Don't take it lying down: visa scams and prostate checks

June 02, 2026 • We Are Griots and SBM Intelligence

0:00 | 52:55

Send us Fan Mail

Summary
A landmark employment tribunal has awarded nearly £30,000 to a care worker who relocated to the UK under the post-Brexit visa scheme, only to receive zero days of work for an entire year. His case is not unusual. Thousands of workers - many from Nigeria and Zimbabwe - entered the same pipeline, paid thousands to agents, and were left stranded. We examine how many get caught up in this dilemma, and why it may not end any time soon.

We also look at the UK National Screening Committee’s recommendation against the introduction of targeted prostate cancer screening for Black men, despite Black men facing twice the risk of white men and 1 in 4 being diagnosed in their lifetime. The screening committee cited a lack of clinical trial data on Black patients. That data gap is itself a product of decades of under-recruitment of Black men in medical research. We discuss what this means in practice, the cultural barriers that already make Black men less likely to seek help, and what you can do right now without waiting for the system to catch up.

Key topics