The European Union is implementing a new border management system with tougher migration control the core aim. Major security and weapons companies are already reaping the benefits.

Frontex, the EU border agency, has financed major weapons and security equipment producers to present their equipment in demonstrations. European national border guards have participated in these demonstrations as potential customers, IPS learns.

For developing countries, the money sent home by emigrants is often a vital financial lifeline. It's money that can spell the difference between poverty and being able to put meals on a table or providing for an education.

It wasn't so long ago that Irish emigrants did the exact same thing, sending money home to Ireland from the United States or the UK to shore up family coffers back home.

A study by the International Labour Organization (ILO) found that their hours significantly outstripped those of the general population. Citing national labour force surveys, the study says that average hours of domestic workers reached nearly 66 hours a week in Malaysia and between 60 and 65 hours a week in Qatar, Namibia, Tanzania and Saudi Arabia.

But many domestic workers are exposed to much longer working hours in practice – and this despite the fact that virtually all countries have set general statutory limits on working time of between 40 and 48 hours a week.

They hand you a soothing cup of Tim Hortons, pack frozen beef in factories, pick blueberries and apples on Abbotsford farms, serve fast-food meals and wipe tables, excavate mines and drill for oil in Western Canada, and raise your kids as if they were their own. Typically paid far less than Canadians, unprotected by labour laws, and disposed of when their contracts end, these migrant labourers have become ubiquitous while remaining all but invisible.