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Saturday, June 16, 2001

"These workers are brought into this country at the request of the employers, and it should not be forgotten that they do so under U.S. law and that it should be enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor," Carol Pier, author of the 56-page report and researcher for the U.S. Program of Human Rights Watch, told United Press International. "We believe the Bush administration should remember when they issue visas they should not reflect human rights abuses."

The trouble is there's not a single government agency that has responsibility, there are multiple government agencies and multiple departments within those agencies that each have a slice. But no one claims responsibility - "this is no one's issue," Pier said Thursday.

Through interviews, civil complaints, court opinions and affidavits, 43 cases were examined by Human Rights Watch. The egregious conditions were present in at least five of the cases reviewed, and workers suffered one or more forms of abuse in the vast majority of employment relationships examined, the report said.

The group found that employers lure the domestic workers to the United States with false promises about their employment conditions. Some of them were in servitude, working up to 19 hours a day, were often paid less than $100 a month, were rarely allowed outside, were not allowed outside without an escort, or were prohibited from speaking to strangers, said the report, "Hidden in the Home: Abuse of Domestic Workers with Special Visas in the United States." "Some were also physically or sexually abused."

Workers who feel they are being exploited face many obstacles in seeking help. Often they do not speak English, do not know where to turn, risk being fired and risk losing their legal immigration status.

"If she complains once she has left the employer, she is already undocumented and risks discovery by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and deportation," Pier said.

"Even workers who sue or press charges against their employers might not find justice. The INS is not required to allow the workers to remain in the United States to have their day in court."

Even if they are allowed to stay, the INS may deny them the right to work and they are not eligible for federal public benefits, such as welfare and food assistance, so survival is difficult, the report added.

The workers come legally to the United States with A-3 visas if hired by diplomats, G-5 visas if employed by international organization officials, and B-1 visas if working for other foreigners or U.S. citizens.

"We plan to examine the report, we take this very seriously, and we have taken steps to address these concerns for where the State Department has responsibility," a spokesman for the State Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor told UPI.

"The State Department required, beginning last year, to have employers provide a contract that is scrutinized by the department that spells out the prevailing wage, regular payments, work hours, holidays, sick days, that an employer may not withhold a passport and that the employer has an obligation to retain records."

Despite the abusive treatment, domestic workers with special visas are often reticent to leave their employers or file legal complaints to enforce their rights while others endure the abuses because their cultural and social isolation, lack of knowledge of U.S. law, few local contacts and friends and inability to communicate in English make the steps required to flee their employers, find alternative housing and seek legal redress prohibitively daunting, the report said.

U.N. Slave Driver

For example, Fariba Ahmed, a Bangladeshi domestic worker who was employed from December 1998 through August 1999 by a representative of a Middle Eastern mission to the United Nations, was allegedly paid only $100 a month. She said she never saw it because it was sent directly to her husband in Bangladesh, the report said.

Ahmed claimed that during her employment, she performed typical household duties for her employer and cared for the couple's two children, a 4-year-old boy and an infant girl, seven days a week, with no days off, for an average of 14 hours a day, from 6 a.m. until 10 p.m.

She said that when she arrived in the United States, her employer confiscated her passport at the airport and that during her employment she was not allowed to leave her employer's apartment alone. According to a civil complaint filed by Ahmed, she said she was "allowed to leave the apartment only on two occasions, both times to go to the market to assist [her employer's wife]."

"Although the worker is supposed to get the contract, often it is confiscated along with the passport, making it difficult to file complaint or a lawsuit," Pier said. "The trouble with the contract is that once the federal government reviews it, it isn't even kept on file, and there's no further monitoring or sanctioning of employers."

Human Rights Watch recommended that U.S. immigrant law be amended so that these contracts be monitored by the government, that sanctions be applied toward employers who breach the contract and that sufficient resources be allocated for the regulation program.

"Last year there were 3,700 of the A-3 and G-5 visas granted by the U.S. State Department," the spokesman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs in the State Department told UPI. "As of last year, those who received these visas are provided with a piece of paper that explains that if the workers feel that their rights have been violated, to call 1-888-428-7581."

UPI received a recording at the toll-free number that said: "If there is an emergency to call 911. You have reached the Worker Exploitation Task Force at the Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. We are away from our desk or on another line, so please leave your name and number and we will get back to you as soon as possible."

"The toll-free number is manned by one person from 9-5 ET," Pier said. "It was established to combat serious problems of modern day slavery and worker abuse in the United States, so the government is admitting it does exist, but only extreme cases are referred to the Justice Department and the rest -- having to do with hours, or wages -- are not referred anywhere." According to Human Rights Watch, few of the offending diplomats are punished or sanctioned in any way.

The State Department's Office of Protocol could sanction a diplomat, according to the Bureau of Consular Affairs spokesman. While the State Department recognizes that "one case is one case too many" the Department told UPI it has no idea how many complaints have been made or how pervasive the problem is.

"While 43 cases may sound like a lot, I don't think it's commonplace, but it is hard to know because the United States is not a pervasive country and abuse could occur within the home," a state Department spokesman told UPI.

"My instincts say that some of the cases are from some Third World countries where domestic wages are very low, criminally low, and some diplomats may not have the means themselves to pay higher wages or some Third World budgets may find difficulty to meet New York City-type expenses."

Most of the workers are employed in the New York City area or Washington, D.C. A third group of domestic workers also come under 200,000 B-1 visas granted each year that allow people from foreign countries to do business in the United States. Pier said these domestic workers were located everywhere, but it could not be estimated how many of the 200,000 are domestic workers.

"Often these employers come from a powerful, elite class in their own country and employers who work at the World Bank or the United Nations are well paid," said Pier. "These workers trust that because they are following the rules and coming to the United States legally, the U.S. government will protect them from abuse. In too many cases, they are sadly mistaken."

If a domestic worker actually manages to sue or press charges against her employer, she finds she does not enjoy the same labor and employment protections as many other workers, because live-in domestic workers are not covered by federal laws governing overtime pay, workplace health and safety, the right to organize and sexual harassment, the report said.

Human Rights Watch recommended one no-cost option available is to have a worker who has filed a compliant to be allowed to transfer to another employer so she could stay in the country and work while the complaint is examined.

Copyright 2001 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

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