PESHAWAR, July 10: Many illegal recruitment agencies in the city are fleecing innocent people with a false claim of providing them jobs in foreign countries.

These illegal recruitment agencies regularly give their advertisements in newspapers seeking job applications from both men and women to provide them jobs in UK.

These agencies charge Rs1,500 as registration fee from every job-seeker before fulfilling other requirements, said a young man who visited one of the illegal agencies situated in Gulbahar Colony near Ishrat Cinema.

The recruitment agency claimed that the actual fee would be charged from their salaries which they would receive from their employer in the UK, Mr Shakeel, who like many Pakistanis eagerly wanted to work abroad, told Dawn.

The agency asked him to fill in a form and submit Rs1,500 as registration fee along with his passport photocopy for recruitment abroad, he said. He added that the recruitment agency also asked him to sign an affidavit in which it was written that the company had not taken any amount from him for his job in the UK.

"He was told by the recruitment agents that they have a job requirement from a hotel in the UK where they will get half of the remuneration, around three sterling pound an hour, as half of the amount will be automatically transferred to the agents in Pakistan as their consultancy and employment fees," said Mr Shakeel.

The firm was offering one year contract initially which was extendible for another year, he maintained.

According to Section 9 of the Immigration Act 1979: "No person other than the BIOE shall recruit a citizen of Pakistan or issue an advertisement or publish a material or hold any interview or examination for such recruitments for the purpose of emigration, except with the prior permission of the director-general or the protector of emigrants of the area, in accordance with such conditions, if any, as may be prescribed."