After Romania joined the European Union in January 2007, thousands of Romanians sought out better paid jobs in western Europe. To fill the gap in the labour market, labour exporters in China shipped over 4,500 construction workers to the building sites of Bucharest in 2008 alone.

But as the global economic crisis hit, hundreds of workers were laid-off. With no way to pay back their huge debts to the labour export companies, they turned to their government for help.

Last year, photojournalist Stephen J.B. Kelly spent time with one group of construction workers in Bucharest. They were promised US$1,000 a month by the labour export company but when they arrived in Bucharest they were forced to sign a new contract in Romanian, which they later discovered only paid about half what they had been promised.

The contract was for five years, and so the workers are now trapped, isolated by language from their fellow workers and neighbours, with no hope of return until they repay their debt to the labour exporter.

Stephen Kelly recorded their story here in words and images.