July 2nd 2008
Slave labour in the UK?
I have just hired a cleaner. Two, in fact. They “operate in teams for their own security as well as efficiency”, are “fully insured”, and have “completed a comprehensive training programme”. All well and good (apart from the cost, but I will not go into that…) Consider, then, the conditions in which some domestic workers in the UK find themselves.
A report presented to UK parliament today by Oxfam and Kalayaan-a charity working for the rights of migrant domestic workers in the UK-reveals astonishing levels of human rights abuses. The organisations surveyed more than 300 domestic workers (cleaners, chauffeurs, cooks, etc) who had entered the UK along with the family for whom they had been working abroad. About two-thirds reported that they were not given their own room, not permitted meal breaks, and not allowed to leave the house. 72% suffered psychological abuse, 26% physical abuse, and 10% sexual abuse.
The UK’s new points-based immigration programme could see immigrant domestic workers’ status changed from that of “worker”, subject to legal employment rights, to “domestic assistant” on a modified business visa. Domestic workers would then be forced to stay with the same employer even if that employer was extremely abusive. Oxfam and Kalayaan are rightly campaigning for this potential change to be scrapped.
Meanwhile, leaders of South America’s trade bloc Mercosur (AKA the Common Market of the South) have condemned as “barbaric” the EU’s new “return directive“, under which immigrants deemed illegal, and who do not leave voluntarily, can be placed in custody for up to 18 months while their deportation is approved by courts. They could then be banned from returning for 5 years.
The UK will not be obliged to comply with this directive since it did not opt in to this aspect of EU community law. In this instance, it made the right decision.
Zoë Mullan
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