Serbia’s Food Delivery Riders: Exploitation, Migrant Labor and the Balkan Route

He was only twenty-one years old. An age when many European young people are still choosing a university, planning holidays, or imagining their future. He, instead, was crossing forests, surviving by drinking water found in the jungle, and working as a delivery rider in Serbia without documents, without protections, and with barely enough food to survive.

His story begins in Bangladesh, in a family and social situation that was already deeply unstable. His family was involved in a dispute over property that had belonged to his grandfather. According to his account, the dispute became intertwined with political tensions and protests. Two people reportedly died in that context, and he himself began to fear personal consequences. Frightened by the situation, his father decided to send him away from the country.

In Bangladesh he studied a little and worked on his family's land. Then came the journey. First, he arrived in Serbia by plane after paying enormous sums of money to leave. Like many young people from South Asia, he had been sold the idea of stable work and a dignified life in Eastern Europe. The reality, however, was completely different.

In Serbia, a company welcomed him and gave him work in the food delivery sector. It was exhausting work, often done by bicycle or scooter, with endless shifts and no real social protection. The young man says he earned around 1,200 euros in a month, but received only 400 or 500 euros. According to his account, the rest was withheld by the company. After paying for accommodation, he had almost nothing left to live on.

The most disturbing part of the story, however, concerns his documents. He says his passport was never returned to him and that no regular documents or work permits were prepared. In practice, he was working without any real possibility of changing jobs, protecting himself legally, or even seeking alternatives. "If you don't have documents, nobody hires you in Serbia," he explains.

Here emerges one of the least discussed aspects of contemporary migration routes: the transformation of migrant workers into an extremely vulnerable and easily exploitable labor force. The food delivery sector in several European and Balkan countries is often built on opaque subcontracting systems and intermediaries. Migrant riders become dependent on employers not only economically, but also legally and logistically. Whoever controls the documents, accommodation, and wages effectively controls the person's entire life.

Under international law, this phenomenon comes dangerously close to forms of labor exploitation prohibited by numerous legal instruments. Article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibits forced labor and servitude. International Labour Organization conventions also require States to combat the exploitation of migrant workers and the unlawful retention of personal documents.

In many cases, withholding a passport is internationally recognized as a possible indicator of labor exploitation or even human trafficking. EU Directive 2011/36/EU on trafficking, together with the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings, highlights how economic vulnerability, dependence on employers, and control over documents can create conditions of severe coercion.

The young man says that he often survived eating only bread. He kept asking himself how he could survive, help his parents back in Bangladesh, and escape that situation. So he decided to leave again. Bosnia, forests, endless walking, hunger, drinking water in the jungle, days spent on foot until Croatia, and then slowly onward toward Slovenia. The so-called "game," endured by a twenty-one-year-old already crushed by debt, fear, and exploitation.

When Europe discusses irregular migration, the focus is too often placed only on the border itself. Much less attention is given to what happens beforehand: opaque recruitment systems, underpaid labor, dependency on employers, lack of documents, and the legal vulnerability of foreign workers. Yet this is precisely where the perfect conditions for new forms of transnational exploitation are created.

Behind a rider delivering food in the rain, there may be a story of debt, political fear, hunger, and journeys through European forests. And perhaps the most tragic point is exactly this: at twenty-one years old, he was not chasing a European dream. He was simply trying to survive.