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      IV. TREATMENT OF MIGRANT DOMESTIC WORKERS WITH SPECIAL VISAS IN THE UNITED STATES

Live-in migrant domestic workers with special visas in the United States share with other live-in migrant domestic workers characteristics that make them particularly vulnerable. First, they labor in what has traditionally been deemed the private sphere and are largely invisible to and unprotected-either de facto or de jure-by laws, regulations, and government scrutiny. Second, when a live-in domestic worker assumes the role of caregiver and housekeeper, she assumes the historical role of the housewife, performing undervalued "women's work." She is often perceived not as a worker but as a "member of the family," though as a hired worker, she may be considered inferior to true family members, including the traditional housewife. In this devalued role, she is particularly susceptible to abuse that reinforces her subordination and her employer's power. Third, as migrants, they are absent from their countries of origin and often experience social and cultural isolation, lacking knowledge of local laws and customs, contacts with direct service organizations, friends and family in the area, and the ability to communicate in the local language.17 In addition, live-in migrant domestic workers with employment-based visas face pressure not to leave exploitative employers or risk dismissal by complaining about abusive working conditions, as loss of their employment strips them of their legal immigration status and can result in deportation.

Through interviews, civil complaints, court opinions, and affidavits, Human Rights Watch reviewed forty-three employment relationships involving migrant domestic workers with special visas-twenty-four G-5 workers,18 fourteen A-3 workers, and five B-1 workers. The employment relationships existed primarily between 1995 and the present, with only four relationships concluding prior to the end of 1995 and all commencing after or during 1990. Human Rights Watch conducted twenty-seven interviews with domestic workers in thirty-four different employment relationships.19

The cases reviewed reveal various manifestations of these four factors of vulnerability and employer abuse of these factors to violate domestic workers' rights. Although Human Rights Watch reviewed a significant number of cases involving severe worker abuse, it is likely that many others did not come to our attention because workers in the most abusive labor relationships, by definition, are unable to leave their employers' premises alone, if at all, and are therefore inaccessible.

Case Studies
The following three cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch show the range of human rights abuses suffered by migrant domestic workers with special visas in the United States. The case of Malika Jamisola is an average case among those reviewed. The workday she described is typical, and the employment conditions and contract violations recounted are common-low wages, long hours of work, lack of health insurance, passport confiscation, limited freedom of movement and ability to communicate with others, and employer threats of deportation. The case of Anita Ortega is one of eleven cases examined by Human Rights Watch in which domestic workers' right to freedom of movement was so severely restricted that they rarely left their employers' premises and is the only case in which a domestic worker alleged sexual assault and harassment by her employer. The case of Fariba Ahmed is one of five in which workers' abusive employment conditions combined to make them feel trapped and unable to leave their employers or cease laboring, constituting servitude and/or forced labor.

Malika Jamisola: Malika Jamisola, was a Filipina domestic worker employed by a U.S. citizen and his U.S. citizen wife from September 1994 through January 1996 in New Jersey.20 Prior to coming to the United States at age twenty-four, Jamisola worked in Japan, where she met her employer by responding to an advertisement the couple posted for a domestic worker while living in Japan. According to Jamisola, her employer offered her an employment contract stating that she would work eight hours per day five days per week, make the "prevailing wage," and have health insurance. She accepted.

Jamisola told Human Rights Watch that when she arrived in the United States, her employer confiscated her passport. She claimed that she did not possess her passport again until early 1995 when she returned briefly to the Philippines but that upon returning to the United States, she refused her employer's request to turn over her passport again and was allowed to keep it.

Jamisola alleged that her employer complied with none of the promised contract terms. She described to Human Rights Watch her typical workweek. Monday through Friday, she awoke at 6:30 AM to prepare the couple's three children-then aged six, nine, and thirteen-for the day. Between 6:30 AM and 8:00 AM, when the last child left for school, she was required to make each child a different breakfast. From 8:00 AM until 3:00 PM, she cleaned the house-washing dishes, doing laundry, washing dry-cleaning by hand, making beds, dusting, and vacuuming. At 3:00 PM, the youngest girl returned home from school, and Jamisola took her to "play dates." She then prepared dinner, set the table, cleared the table, cleaned the kitchen, and washed the dishes. Though she prepared the food, she told Human Rights Watch that she was only allowed to eat a limited amount, as her employer "put the portion on the plate for me. I couldn't help myself." Between 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM, she put the three children to bed. If the man in the family was preparing for a business trip, she began at 10:00 PM to iron all his dress shirts, finishing at approximately 11:30 PM. If her employer and his wife went out for the evening, she was expected to remain awake, often until midnight, until they returned. Three times a week, she went grocery shopping, riding five or six miles to the grocery store on the employer's son's old bicycle because she could not drive. She was also responsible for raking leaves, watering the garden, shoveling the snow, and washing the car twice a month. On Saturday, though her duties varied because the children were at home, her hours remained approximately the same. Sunday was Jamisola's only day off, and she was required to return to the house by 7:00 PM.

Jamisola stated that she was prohibited from using the employer's telephone to make local calls and was not allowed to leave her employer's premises Monday through Saturday except to run errands, such as grocery shopping. She recalled only one occasion when her employer's wife allowed her to leave during the work week with a friend, "but my friend had to call her [the employer's wife] and tell her where she was taking me."

Jamisola said that after approximately eight months, she requested a raise and another day off. According to Jamisola, "He [her employer] said he needed my help on Saturdays . . . [,and] he said that I should just go back to the Philippines if I couldn't accept what he was paying." Jamisola said that he nonetheless raised her monthly salary from $600 to $700. Including standard deductions for room and board allowed under federal law,21 Human Rights Watch calculates that Jamisola made approximately $2.37 per hour during the first half of her employment and $2.60 during the second half, though at the time the statutory minimum hourly wage was $4.25.

Despite her employment conditions, Jamisola told Human Rights Watch that she would have remained with her employer if he had agreed to sponsor her to stay in the United States longer because "my family still needed help. I have three brothers and one sister . . . Their jobs are not enough."

Anita Ortega: Anita Ortega, a Guatemalan domestic worker, was employed by a high-ranking representative of a mission to the OAS from September 1995 until June 1997 in Potomac, Maryland. 22 She recounted that she had previously worked for her employer while he was an OAS official in Guatemala and stated that he contacted her when he was appointed to work in the United States to ask if she would accompany him as his domestic worker. She was thirty-three. She told Human Rights Watch that her employer verbally promised her $300 per month, plus room and board, with periodic raises, and she accepted. She said she signed the employment contract without any further discussion of its terms, explaining, "I never imagined how the labor laws were here . . . Nobody explained my rights to me before I came." She did not remember reading the contract and claimed she never received a copy.

Ortega recounted that she was responsible for performing all the household chores for her employer-preparing meals, washing clothes, ironing, washing floors, washing dishes, washing the car, shoveling snow, and raking leaves-and caring for her employer's three sons, aged five, eight, and nine. Ortega described her workday as beginning at approximately 6:30 AM and ending at approximately 8:30 PM Monday through Friday and lasting from approximately 8:00 AM until 9:30 PM on Saturday. When the family had gatherings in their home, which Ortega said occurred about once a month, she was required to work until 1:00 AM or 2:00 AM. Though Sunday was her day off, she was required to prepare all meals on Sunday and, if she returned to her room to rest, was frequently called upon by the three children.

Ortega told Human Rights Watch that in December 1996, she asked her employer for a raise from the $300 per month salary she was receiving, to which he replied that he could not pay her more because he earned very little as a representative to the OAS and that, if she wanted, he would cancel her visa and send her back to Guatemala. Including the permissible deductions for room and board and calculating an hourly wage based only on Ortega's work Monday through Saturday, Human Rights Watch determined that her hourly wage was approximately $1.74-only 39 percent of the federal hourly minimum wage at the time.23

Ortega told Human Rights Watch that until April 1997, two months before the conclusion of her employment, though the family took her with them for Sunday outings and to attend church, she never left the house alone. She said that her employer and his wife confiscated her passport upon her arrival in the United States and that "they never allowed me to leave for anything. They told me that Americans were bad and that if I went out, I would run into one." Ortega said that she became very afraid because her employer's wife told her that "people in the United States were crazy and could hurt me. [She said that] there are psychopaths here who could kill me, and no one would even realize it." Even when Ortega accompanied the family on weekend outings, she said, "They told me not to talk to anyone. Even when we went to church, I couldn't talk to anyone." She alleged, "They didn't want me to have friends," and she described how the employer's wife inhibited her from developing outside relationships by prohibiting her from making or receiving telephone calls.

During the spring of 1997, according to Ortega, she met another Guatemalan woman through a neighbor she befriended at the bus stop where she picked up her employer's children from school. With the promise of the Guatemalan woman's companionship, Ortega overcame her fear and asked her employer's wife if she could leave the house on Sundays. Ortega was granted permission to do so but was required to wash the day's dishes and clean the kitchen when she returned on Sunday evenings.

Though she was ultimately allowed to leave her employer's premises on Sundays, Ortega said she was never provided with a key to the family's home. She recounted one instance when the family left for New York for three days and she became very sick but was unable to leave the home to get medicine because she lacked a key to let herself back in. Not only was she unable to obtain her own medicine when left alone but, according to Ortega, who had no health insurance, the employer's wife denied her requests to be allowed to see a doctor.

Ortega further recounted through tears that in addition to the abusive treatment described above, she had also endured three instances of sexual assault and harassment by her employer.24 According to Ortega, the first instance occurred after a heavy snowstorm in January 1996, approximately four months after she arrived in the United States. Ortega explained that she had never seen snow before and was staring out of her basement bedroom window looking at the snow when "the man [her employer] entered my room and began rubbing my shoulders . . . I told him no and that I didn't want problems with the woman. She was upstairs in the family room." Ortega said that she then pulled away, and "he grabbed me and threw me in a rage on the bed and left." Ortega described the second incident, saying, "He was watching a movie and asked me to bring his dinner to him. He was watching a sex movie. The couple in the movie was having sex. I brought him his dinner, and he told me to stay and watch." She said that she stayed for a time and then went into the kitchen, and he yelled, "'You left at the best part.'" She continued, "I [then] went to my room and was getting undressed. He entered without knocking. I had already taken off my pants. He came to tell me that he was going out. He had no reason to come down to my room to tell me that." According to Ortega, the third incident occurred one evening when the employer's wife was in the kitchen and told Ortega to go to Ortega 's room with the employer to look for something. Ortega recounts, "I didn't want to, but I went. He turned off the light and tried to kiss me and make me touch him." "He came towards me and grabbed me . . . He put his hand on my head and tried to bring me to him . . . He took my hand and tried to make me touch his private parts." She said that she pulled away, turned on the light, and left her room and went upstairs to the kitchen, leaving her employer standing there.

When Human Rights Watch asked Ortega why she did not leave such an abusive employment relationship,25 she explained:

      I am a single mother of two daughters. The salary there [in Guatemala] is not sufficient for their studies, their food, their clothes. I want them to get ahead in life. . . I come from a poor family. My mother is a single mother. We don't have anything. . . Sometimes one is pressured by the economic situation. It's terrible what one suffers. . . Sometimes I ask myself why I put up with so much. It's for this, for my mother and my daughters.

Asked why she did not file a lawsuit to seek redress for the abuses committed by her former employer, Ortega told Human Rights Watch, "I didn't know anything about lawyers . . . I thought about it, but I didn't know who to turn to."

Fariba Ahmed: Fariba Ahmed is a Bangladeshi domestic worker who was employed in an Upper East Side apartment in Manhattan, New York City, from December 1998 through August 1999 by a representative of a Middle Eastern mission to the U.N. According to her civil complaint filed in federal court, in August 1998, at age twenty-eight, Ahmed met an employment agent in Bangladesh who promised her a job in her employer's country of origin, where she worked briefly as a domestic worker for her employer's brother before agreeing to come to the United States to work for her employer.26

Ahmed's attorney told Human Rights Watch that Ahmed was promised $200 per month to work as a domestic worker in the United States.27 During her approximately nine-month employment, however, Ahmed was allegedly paid only $100 per month-money which she said she never saw because it was sent directly to her husband in Bangladesh.28 Ahmed claimed that during her employment, she performed typical household duties for her employer and cared for the couple's two children, a four-year-old boy and an infant girl, seven days a week, with no days off, for an average of fourteen hours per day-from 6:00 AM until 10:00 PM.29 Including allowable deductions for room and board, Human Rights Watch calculates that Ahmed made approximately $1.03 per hour-20 percent of the federal hourly minimum wage at the time of her employment.

Ahmed described a climate of fear that she felt during her employment, created through alleged psychological and physical abuse by her employer and his family. Ahmed claimed that the family "humiliated me and made me feel inhuman,"30 went on vacation without leaving her food or money to purchase food,31 and only allowed her to eat their leftovers.32 Ahmed also claimed in her complaint that the employer's wife assaulted her on at least two occasions-once when she asked Ahmed to bring a glass and struck her with the glass when she brought the wrong one and once when she allegedly struck Ahmed while she was cooking, causing Ahmed to burn her arm on the stove.33

Ahmed stated 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.34 According to her complaint, Ahmed was "allowed to leave the apartment only on two occasions, both times to go to the market to assist [her employer's wife]." 35

Ahmed's complaint alleged that during the second of her two outings with her employer's wife, Ahmed spoke briefly with a Bengali-speaking produce vender nearby.36 Allegedly, Ahmed's employer's family left for vacation later that day, and Ahmed, with the assistance of a boy who helped her operate the apartment elevator, left the apartment alone for the first time, retraced her steps to find the Bengali-speaking produce vendor,37 and recounted to him "that she was being mistreated and was kept locked up" in her employer's home. 38 Ahmed said that she gave the vendor her telephone number and described where she lived, whereupon he contacted a local newspaper reporter, who contacted a community advocate for South Asian workers.39 According to Ahmed's complaint, the advocate reported Ahmed's case to the New York City Police Department (NYPD) and accompanied the police to Ahmed's residence, where they escorted her out.40

Ahmed stated, "If I did not have their [the advocates'] support, I would not have been able to leave and would have stayed in their home like a prisoner."41 Asked why her client, who spoke no English, was illiterate in her native Bengali, knew no one in New York City, did not have her passport, and had no money with her, did not leave her abusive labor situation on her own,42 Ahmed's attorney told Human Rights Watch, "She had a sense of feeling imprisoned . . . She felt she couldn't get out."43

Ahmed's employer never admitted nor denied the allegations in Ahmed's complaint, instead invoking diplomatic immunity.44 The parties ultimately settled the case,45 and the employer's attorney has failed to return Human Rights Watch's repeated telephone calls seeking a response to Ahmed's allegations. The police report, filed by the NYPD officers who helped Ahmed leave her situation, was also closed-according to Ahmed's attorney, without contacting either her or her client.46

The police report, however, lists under the heading "offenses," "unlawful imprisonment," and states under the heading "details," that Ahmed told the police that the "perp. [i.e. perpetrator] held her against her will to freely go as she pleased . . . The Perp & Perps's [sic] wife made verbals [sic] threats in regard to her access to freedom . . . [The] Perp removed her passport from her upon arrival to this country." 47 The FBI is now conducting an investigation into the criminal claim of involuntary servitude made by Ahmed and based on these allegations.48

Specific Abuses Suffered

Assault and Battery
Human Rights Watch reviewed seven cases in which domestic workers' physical and moral integrity was allegedly violated through assault and/or battery by their employers, including the cases of Ahmed and Ortega.49 The incidents of alleged employer physical violence included yanking workers by their clothing, beating workers, striking or slapping workers, yelling at a worker while wielding a knife, sexual assault, and threatening a worker with physical harm.

In the case of V.G., a Sri Lankan domestic worker employed from August 28, 1992 through December 17, 1992 by a Kuwaiti national studying at Boston University, the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals found, "During the four months she remained in the apartment, [V.G.] was assaulted twice. On one occasion, when [V.G.] asked that the volume be turned down on the television while she was trying to sleep, appellant grabbed and threw her bodily against the wall. On another occasion, Abair Alzanki [the employer] slapped [V.G.] and spat in her face when she failed to turn off a monitor."50 According to the court, on these two occasions, V.G. was "contemporaneously informed that their [the assaults'] purpose was to keep her `in her place.'"51 The court also found that, "[o]n another occasion, Abair Alzanki threatened to sew up [V.G.]'s mouth with a needle and thread, and throw her into the ocean."52

Similarly, Tseheye Assefa, an Ethiopian domestic worker employed from February 1990 through June 1992 by an African senior research officer with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), alleged in her civil complaint, "Approximately one year after her arrival in the United States, [she] became emotionally distraught regarding her situation and was homesick and was crying. [Her employer] inquired as to why [she] was crying and proceeded to beat her for crying."53

Limited Freedom of Movement

      [M]igrant women . . . are often subjected to arbitrary and enforced deprivation of liberty at the hands of both non-State and State actors. Women's movement is either overtly impeded through locks, bars and chains or less conspicuously (but no less effectively) restricted by confiscation of their passports and travel documents, stories of arrest and deportation, [or] threats of retaliation against family members.

      - Radhika Coomaraswamy, U.N. Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women54

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) protects the right to freedom of movement,55 and the U.N. Human Rights Committee has recognized the importance of protecting this right from "not only public but also from private interference," noting that "[i]n the case of women, this obligation to protect is particularly pertinent . . . [I]t is incompatible with [the ICCPR], that the right of a woman to move freely . . . be made subject, by law or practice, to the decision of another person."56 The ICCPR also provides that "[e]veryone shall be free to leave any country."57

      Employers of migrant domestic workers use myriad techniques to limit workers' freedom of movement and perpetuate their social and cultural isolation. For example, employers confiscate workers' passports; deny workers the right to leave the employers' premises after work hours or completely deny the right to leave unaccompanied; fail to give workers house keys; misrepresent U.S. law, culture, and the "dangers" of U.S. streets; prohibit workers from speaking with anyone outside the employers' immediate families, either in person or by telephone; and deny workers the right to attend religious services. Such rules, warnings, and restrictions might easily be disregarded or dismissed by persons familiar with U.S. laws and culture and without severely restricted employment options. Migrant domestic workers with special visas, however, the vast majority of whom are unaware of their legal rights in the United States, are unlikely to challenge their employers. These techniques, therefore, can successfully confine a domestic worker to her employer's premises, transforming the employer's home at once into a prison and a safe haven from the "terrors" of the outside world.

The State Department has directly addressed the problem of employer violation of G-5 and A-3 domestic workers' freedom of movement by requiring, as of February 2000, that the employment contract between such a domestic worker and her employer indicate that "the employee cannot be required to remain on the employer's premises after working hours without additional compensation" and that the employee's passport will not be confiscated.58 No such requirement exists for the potential employer of a B-1 domestic worker, and, as discussed below, no governmental monitoring mechanism exists to ensure that employers, in practice, respect these contract provisions.

Withholding Passports

      In nineteen of the forty-three cases examined by Human Rights Watch, domestic workers reported that their employers confiscated their passports. In three more cases, including the case of Jamisola, domestic workers said that their employers took their passports at first but then agreed to return them.

Limiting Workers' Right to Leave Employers' Premises and Speak with Strangers

      In most of the employment relationships reviewed by Human Rights Watch, domestic workers were allowed to leave their employers' premises once a week, usually on Sundays, and usually for the entire day. In approximately eleven of the forty-three cases, domestic workers were given more than one day off per week, during which they were also allowed to leave their employers' homes.

Most of the domestic workers provided one or more days of rest during the week also recounted that they were allowed to leave their employers' premises only on those days of rest. Glenda Heredia, a Peruvian domestic worker employed by a Latin American diplomat from May 1996 through August 1999, recounted, "I couldn't leave during the week. I had asked permission. She [the employer's wife] said no . . . She didn't explain why."59 Paula Jiménez, a Colombian domestic worker employed by a Latin American diplomat from approximately 1995 through the present, also stated, "They tell me that I can go out on Sunday and nothing more. They said I have to work as if I were in Colombia."60 Several domestic workers claimed that their employers justified denying them permission to leave the homes after work hours on the grounds that the employers would be responsible if something bad happened to the workers. In fact, however, like other U.S. employers, employers of domestic workers are not liable for misfortune that may befall their employees off work premises during non-work hours.

Domestic workers' freedom of movement was further limited by warnings they allegedly received from their employers regarding the misfortunes that could befall them alone on U.S. streets and the dangers of speaking with or befriending strangers in the United States. For example, two domestic workers told Human Rights Watch that their employers warned them that all Latino and Spanish-speaking people in the United States were "bad,"61 while another worker alleged that her employer cautioned her that "police grab Latinas who walk at night."62 Whether or not the employers believed such warnings, domestic workers' social and cultural isolation likely inhibited them from objectively evaluating them, and several domestic workers told Human Rights Watch that the warnings made them fearful of venturing out alone in the evenings or even on their days off. Margarita Pérez, an Ecuadorean domestic worker employed from age nineteen by a Latin American diplomat from 1996 through 1999, told Human Rights Watch, "I was afraid because of what she [her employer] had told me . . . For two and a half years I didn't even go out on Sundays." 63

Even those few domestic workers who were allowed to leave their employers' premises after completing their work said that they were free to do so only with their employers' permission. Thus, even those domestic workers in the most desirable employment relationships suffered some degree of employer control over their movements.

While most domestic workers were provided at least one day off per week, in eleven cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch, domestic workers were not regularly given a day off. In these cases, domestic workers were often allowed to leave their employers' premises only if accompanied by employers or employers' family members, such as children in their care, and only on rare occasions, if at all. Their employers frequently ordered them not to speak to anyone during their rare outings and instilled fear in them, deterring them from disobeying orders to remain on the premises. These eleven workers were also subjected to egregiously abusive wage and hour conditions, further inhibiting them from leaving their employers' premises or quitting their jobs and departing the United States by paying their own airfares and flying home. Two of the workers received no regular monthly salary-they were paid only small amounts randomly during their employment-while the monthly salaries of the other nine ranged from $50 to $300, averaging approximately $173 per month, not including deductions for room and board. The workdays ranged from fourteen to seventeen hours, with an average of fifteen hours. In ten of these eleven cases, employers also confiscated workers' passports, preventing them from voluntarily leaving the United States without intervention from government authorities.

Florence Sadibou, a Senegalese domestic worker employed from November 1994 through October 1995 by an African U.N. official, alleged in a civil complaint that she worked fourteen hours a day seven days a week and that her employer withheld her passport and threatened her with dismissal and deportation if she ever left her home.64

Similarly, Rokeya Akhatar, a Bangladeshi domestic worker employed by the family of a Middle Eastern businessman from approximately July 1998 through September 1998,65 told Human Rights Watch:

      I couldn't go out for even one second . . . I wasn't allowed to leave the house [alone] at all. [The family] told me that if I went outside, the police would arrest me because I did not have my papers [with me]. They said that without a green card, the police would arrest me. [They said] America is bad and that it would be bad if I went outside as a single woman, so I never went outside. I was like a bird in a cage.66

Akhatar explained that the reason that she did not have her papers was that, upon her arrival in the United States, a member of the family for whom she worked confiscated her passport.67 Akhatar continued, "Now I know that I can go outside, but at that time I did not."

According to her attorney, Akhatar left her employer's premises only once or twice during her employment to accompany a family member grocery shopping.68 Akhatar recounted that on those few occasions that she was allowed to leave her employer's premises, the family member "said [I had to] cover my head and hair and not speak to anyone in Hindi. . . . [She] told me that I was not to talk to anyone in that language." 69 Akhatar's attorney recounted that Akhatar was told that if she tried to speak to anyone outside the family, she would be deported. 70 Responding to the civil complaint filed by Akhatar, the family denied the above allegations.71

Health and Safety Concerns
Several domestic workers recounted how their days were punctuated with demands and treatment that seriously affected their right to health and put in jeopardy their right to work in a healthy and safe working environment.72 They described unhealthy sleeping situations, unsafe working conditions, denial of food, and refusal to provide medical care.

Health and Safety in the Workplace
Domestic workers complained of sleeping arrangements ranging from sleeping in their employers' basements in utility rooms next to gas furnaces to sleeping in an unheated basement under construction, to sleeping on the basement floor. In addition to such sleeping situations, domestic workers also described unsafe working conditions that endangered their health. In two cases, domestic workers described cleaning their employers' homes with cleaning products that made them ill due to lack of proper protective measures. For example, Elena Castro, a Peruvian domestic worker for a Latin American World Bank official, stated, "She [my employer] gave me very strong Tilex. Each time I cleaned the bathroom, it was torture-toxic."73 Castro recounted that her employer ordered her to clean with the Tilex and told her she would grow accustomed to it. Castro noted, "She didn't tell me anything about opening windows or not staying in the room."

In a few cases, such as the case of Ahmed, workers were also allegedly denied sufficient nourishment. For example, a court found that V.G., the Sri Lankan domestic worker employed by a Kuwaiti student in 1992, was "denied . . . adequate food, which resulted in serious symptoms of malnourishment, including enlarged abdomen, massive hair loss, and cessation of menstrual cycles." 74

Medical Treatment
Another consequence of domestic workers' social and cultural isolation, low wages and long hours, lack of or insufficient health insurance, and restricted freedom of movement is their inability to access medical care, even for work-related injuries, without the permission and assistance of their employers. Of the forty-three employment relationships reviewed by Human Rights Watch, employers paid for health insurance or shared at least partial costs of medical treatment in seventeen cases and failed to provide any insurance or cost sharing in eighteen cases. In eight cases, domestic workers were not sure or failed to report whether they had health insurance. In at least three cases, including the case of Ortega, domestic workers told Human Rights Watch that they were explicitly denied permission by their employers to seek medical treatment when they were ill and, instead, were required to continue working.

Julia Chávez, a Bolivian domestic worker employed by an OAS official from July 1997 through October 1998, alleged in a civil complaint that her employer and his wife required her to work when she was sick and, despite her repeated requests for medical treatment, refused to take her to see a doctor, telling her that doctors were expensive and the family could not afford to pay her medical bills.75 Chávez also alleged in her complaint that after she told her employer and his wife that she was sexually abused and raped by an acquaintance of the family in August 1998, they denied her medical treatment and a forensic exam, though Chávez allegedly "exhibited . . . signs of physical and emotional trauma" and "repeatedly explained to them that she was very sick and preferred to die."76 Responding to her complaint, Chávez' employer and his wife denied these allegations and asserted "no knowledge" of Chávez' claim that she was raped.77

Wage and Hour Concerns
The State Department requires the potential employer of any migrant domestic worker with a special visa to contract to pay the worker the state or federal minimum or prevailing wage, whichever is higher.78 The federal minimum wage is established at a level that the U.S. government believes ensures that "[i]f you get up every day and you go to work . . .[,you] have food on your table and a living wage in your pocket."79 The Fair Labor Standards Act, establishing minimum wage protections, also claims to "eliminate conditions" "detrimental to the maintenance of the minimum standard of living necessary for . . . [the] general well-being of workers."80

When a migrant domestic worker with a special visa is grossly underpaid for the many hours she is required to work, not only are her rights under U.S. and international law directly implicated,81 but her ability to exercise her rights to freedom of movement in the United States and to flee her abusive employment situation is limited as well. Without money and a reasonable limit to work hours, a migrant domestic worker may be impeded from leaving her employer's premises, seeking medical treatment, providing temporarily for herself in the United States after she quits her job, or arranging and financing a flight to her country of origin.

Often, however, implicit in the expectation that a domestic worker assume a persona similar to that of the traditional housewife is that she be on-call twenty-four hours a day and receive little remuneration for her devalued "women's work." Not surprisingly, the two most common complaints made by domestic workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch were that they worked long hours with little opportunity to rest and received compensation often significantly less than the minimum wage or even the sub-minimum wage salary to which they had agreed.

In the forty-three employment relationships reviewed by Human Rights Watch, both the average and the median workday was fourteen hours, with most workers working at least six day weeks and ten working seven. Only three workers reported working ten hours or less per day.

Most domestic workers reported that during their workdays they were responsible for the care of young children throughout the day and that the wives and mothers, who in most cases did not work outside the home, or other live-in relatives closely monitored their activities. According to Akhatar, the Bangladeshi domestic worker employed by the family of a Middle Eastern businessman, "I didn't even get one hour off . . . I couldn't sit because people were always watching."82 Akhatar described how, in addition to her visa sponsor, there were approximately six other adults residing in the home during her employment and monitoring her activities.83

Human Rights Watch reviewed forty cases to determine the median hourly wage received by domestic workers for their labors,84 which with little variation included those duties enumerated by Jamisola. Using the median workday of fourteen hours and the median work week of six days and taking into account allowable standard deductions for room and board calculated based on the median applicable federal hourly minimum wage of $5.15,85 domestic workers' median hourly wage was $2.14-only forty-two percent of the minimum hourly wage.86

Privacy Invasions
The ICCPR provides that "[n]o one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence."87 The Human Rights Committee has stated that "this right is required to be guaranteed against all such interferences and attacks whether they emanate from State authorities or from natural or legal persons" and that states parties must "adopt legislative and other measures" to give effect to this right, ensuring that interferences only occur "in accordance with the provisions, aims and objectives" of the ICCPR.88 Even in the case of a live-in domestic worker who shares a home with her employer, both parties have a right to have their privacy respected. 89

When employers read domestic workers' mail, listen to their telephone conversations, or search their rooms or purses, these invasions of privacy harass workers, violate their dignity, and reinforce their positions in employers' homes as inferior, disrespected, and devalued.90 In three cases in our survey, domestic workers recounted that their employers listened in on their telephone conversations. In two cases, workers reported that their employers opened and read their mail. In addition, some employers allegedly subjected domestic workers to invasive searches of their purses and rooms. Elena Castro, a Peruvian domestic worker for a Latin American World Bank official, explained that even having her own bedroom did not protect her against unwanted intrusions, describing how every Sunday-Castro's only day off during the week-her employer searched her possessions, and, one Sunday, "she found my diary and read everything. She got mad."91

Psychological Abuse

      I wasn't allowed to sit at the same table . . . I wasn't allowed to wash my clothes with their clothes. They made me different. Sometimes the food I cooked didn't taste good to them, and they would yell at me. They made me[feel] like . . . they were my owner.

      -Rokeya Akhatar, a Bangladeshi domestic worker employed from approximately July 1998 through September 1998 by the family of a Middle Eastern businessman92

According to Ai-jen Poo, Program Director for the Women Workers Project of the Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence, serving live-in migrant domestic workers in the New York City area:

      There's a lot of psychological warfare that goes on in the workplace. It's a really strange industry because the workers' . . . jobs are to raise children and care for intimate elements of people's lives. [There is] an emotional and psychological element to work that does not exist in any other industry, so the abuse [the women workers] face is very different [and] very similar to domestic violence-those power dynamics . . . That . . . kind of control is difficult to write about or document or create laws around, [but it is] such a key element of control and [of] how power operates. 93

      Psychological abuse experienced by domestic workers in the cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch highlighted employers' superiority and workers' inferiority. The abuse reinforced employers' power, control, and domination over the domestic workers, making them less likely to resist or seek redress for the abusive employment conditions described above. Domestic workers described to Human Rights Watch forms of psychological abuse committed by their employers or employers' spouses, including: requiring them to wash their clothes separately from the employers' or with dirty rags; denying them proper clothing; insulting them; and controlling their food consumption.

The most common form of psychological abuse described by the workers was verbal abuse, including name-calling, such as "stupid," "creature," and "bitch." Describing her employer's wife, Daniela Sánchez, a Chilean domestic worker employed by an Inter-American Development Bank consultant, stated, "She talks to me . . . as if I were a piece of furniture, not even an animal."94

Teresa Espinoza, a Peruvian domestic worker, stated that on the evening of February 5, 1999 while working for a European diplomat, the diplomat returned home from work early, took his children upstairs to their room and closed their door, and came back downstairs and began to yell at her, telling her that she was a "simple maid" and "nothing" in his house. 95 Espinoza recounted, "He raised his hand to hit me on the head, but I turned my head, and his hand came down on the table." She described how her employer yelled again, calling her a "poor servant," a "piece of trash" and "from the street." Espinoza said that he then ordered her out of his house and that his wife joined in, encouraging him to grab her arm and throw her and her belongings into the street. Espinoza told Human Rights Watch that she begged her employer not to throw her out because she had nowhere to go on the cold, snowy February night. She explained that her employer retorted that he was a diplomat and could do whatever he wanted with her because the U.S. justice system could not reach him. According to Espinoza, her employer eventually relented and did not throw her out. She remained with him for two more months because, she said, she had nowhere else to go.

According to domestic workers, aside from verbal abuse, one of the most common means by which employers caused them psychological, and in some cases physical, suffering was by controlling and placing limitations on their food consumption. Domestic workers, such as Jamisola, described the various means by which their employers controlled their food intake: measuring their food portions; allowing them to eat only leftovers; and offering them rotten fruit or discarded food. Liliana Martínez, a Peruvian domestic worker employed from November 1999 through February 2000 by a representative of a mission to the OAS, recounted, "I wasn't allowed to eat the things in the refrigerator. When they didn't want something anymore, they gave it to me."96 Akhatar, the Bangladeshi domestic worker employed by the family of a Middle Eastern businessman, told Human Rights Watch that she was allowed only leftovers for dinner and that, on several occasions, when there were no leftovers, she was told to eat bread and instructed not to prepare any additional food for herself because she had to "clean up." 97

Servitude, Forced Labor, and Trafficking in Persons
Servitude is prohibited under international law by the ICCPR and by other regional and international human rights instruments.98 Although the prohibition of servitude obligates states to provide effective remedies for any individual held in servitude and to criminalize servitude in domestic law,99 the term "servitude" is not explicitly defined in international law. The history of the prohibition of servitude under international law, however, suggests that, unlike slavery, servitude is not limited to those practices involving the deprivation of civil and political rights to create a relationship of ownership or de facto ownership.100 Instead, although no consensus exists, two elements of servitude appear to be commonly identified: a dependent, economically abusive labor relationship; and no reasonable possibility to escape that relationship.101

In the most egregious cases, a domestic worker's abusive employment conditions may combine to create a situation of servitude. A working paper prepared for the United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery (Working Group), which has repeatedly examined the abuse of migrant domestic workers,102 notes:

      [C]ertain techniques of abuse akin to slavery affect migrant workers in particular. These practices include employers confiscating workers' passports and, particularly in the case of domestic workers, keeping them in virtual captivity. 103


Abusive labor situations suffered by migrant domestic workers may also constitute forced labor. The ICCPR prohibits forced labor,104 and the definition of forced labor in the ILO Forced Labour Convention, to which the United States is not party, has been used to interpret the ICCPR prohibition. 105 The ILO Forced Labour Convention defines forced labor as "all work or service which is extracted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily."106

The two critical terms of the definition of forced labor-"menace of any penalty" and "voluntarily"-are not defined by the ILO Convention. The ILO Committee of Experts, however, has clarified that the "menace of any penalty . . . need not be in the form of penal sanctions, but might take the form also of a loss of rights or privileges."107 International fora that have addressed the meaning of "voluntarily" have taken the view that consent to enter an employment relationship is only voluntary if it is "free and informed" and made "with knowledge" of the terms and conditions of the employment being accepted.108

Domestic workers whose labor conditions constitute servitude or forced labor are frequently trafficking victims. The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Trafficking Protocol), adopted by the U.N. in November 2000, requires states parties to prevent and combat trafficking, defining trafficking as:

      the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of abuse. Abuse shall include, at a minimum, the abuse of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual abuse, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.109

In some of the most egregious cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch, including the case of Ahmed, workers believed, given the totality of their circumstances, that they had no choice but to remain in their abusive employment relationships or, at the very least, that they would suffer serious harm-the "menace of any penalty"- if they ceased performing labor. In some cases, the climate of fear that compelled workers to remain in abusive relationships and continue laboring was created primarily through threats of arrest or physical harm to workers or others. In other cases, employers used restrictions on workers' right to freedom of movement and long hours of labor for little pay, combined with psychological and/or physical abuse, control, and domination, to exacerbate workers' social and cultural isolation and sense of helplessness and disempowerment to such an extent that the workers feared serious harm if they were to quit their jobs. As explained by Xiomara Salgado of Montgomery County, Maryland, Victim Assistance and Sexual Assault Program, in such cases:

      [domestic workers] start feeling overwhelmed by their fears . . . They feel trapped, but ambivalent about leaving, talking and seeking help. After feeling betrayed by their employers . . . it is hard for them to trust strangers. The social isolation they have been subjected to has made them even more distrustful and vulnerable. Their self-esteem suffers considerable damage after prolonged periods of maltreatment, abuse, and humiliation. They feel inadequate, powerless, and worthless.110

In these cases, employers created a climate of fear to hold workers in conditions of servitude and/or compel them to perform forced labor. These workers did not "voluntarily" consent to the abusive conditions of their employment. They became trafficking victims through employer use of deception- including fraudulent misrepresentation of the terms and conditions of their employment-to recruit and transport them to the United States to labor in conditions amounting to servitude or forced labor.

Kaka Kuwa: Kaka Kuwa, a Sudanese domestic worker employed from March 1997 through December 1997 by an African World Bank official, described her employment as "virtual bondage."111 She alleged in an affidavit that she worked fourteen hour days, Monday through Friday, six hour days on weekends, made $200 per month, not including room and board, and claimed that her employer took her passport upon her arrival in the United States and "did not allow me to leave the house."112 She asserted that she was unable to leave her employment because her employer "threatened me by saying that they [the employer's family] would send me back to Sudan and have me arrested for the money owed to them [for] my airline ticket to the U.S. and for incidentals they say I accrued while working for them." 113 For Kuwa, the possibility of deportation was particularly terrifying, not solely because of the economic hardship she would face, but because she feared being tortured and persecuted upon her return because of the humanitarian work she had performed for the Nuba people of Sudan before she left the country.114 According to Kuwa, despite this fear, she did not pursue an asylum claim while employed as a domestic worker because she "was unable to learn about, much less pursue" such a claim.115

V.G.: The U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals found that V.G., the Sri Lankan domestic worker employed from August 1992 through December 1992 by a Kuwaiti Boston University student, "reasonably believed that she had no choice except to remain in the service of the Alzankis [her employer and his wife]" and upheld her employer's involuntary servitude conviction.116 The court found that V.G.'s passport was immediately confiscated upon her arrival in the United States and that her employer "told her that she was not to leave the apartment alone. She was not permitted to use the telephone or the mails, speak with anyone other than the Alzankis, nor even to venture onto the balcony or look out the apartment windows. Appellant told [V.G.] that the American police, as well as the neighbors, would shoot undocumented aliens who ventured out alone."117 During her employment, V.G.'s employer required her to work fifteen hour days seven days a week for $120 per month, not including room and board, denied her medical treatment and adequate food, assaulted her on two occasions, and "threatened [her] on almost a daily basis with deportation, death or serious harm should she disobey the Alzankis' orders."118 V.G.'s employer threatened her with deportation to Kuwait if she left their employ, and V.G. was "well aware of the severely restrictive conditions encountered by household servants in Kuwait," where "soldiers manned checkpoints to enforce restrictions on noncitizen movement, especially household servants" and where, according to V.G.'s testimony at trial, "police catch domestic workers who venture out alone on the streets, hit them, and put them in jail."119 V.G. was finally able to escape her situation with the help of nurses who came to the Alzankis' home to care for their ill son.120

17 See, e.g., Joan Fitzpatrick and Katrina R. Kelly, "Gendered Aspects of Migration: Law and the Female Migrant," 22 Hastings International & Comparative Law Review 47 (Fall 1998), pp. 59, 67-68; Bridget Anderson, "'Just Like One of the Family'? Migrant Domestic Workers in the European Union" (Ph.D. diss., University of Leicester, 1998), pp. 113-14, 143-44; Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, "Situation of migrant workers and members of their families," Res. 1997/4, August 21, 1997.

18 Of these twenty-four G-5 workers, four worked for International Monetary Fund (IMF) officials; three for United Nations (U.N.) officials; eight for World Bank officials; three for Organization of American States (OAS) officials; two for Inter-American Development Bank officials; one for an official of a foreign mission to the U.N.; two for officials of foreign missions to the OAS; and one for a foreign military corps.

19 Workers', employers', and workers' attorneys' true names, civil case numbers, as well as employers' countries of origin in most cases, are not used in this report to ensure anonymity to protect workers from retaliation by current or former employers. The only true name of an employer used in this report is from the one case that Human Rights Watch examined through an opinion issued by the U.S. First Circuit Court of Appeals.

20 Human Rights Watch interview, Malika Jamisola, a B-1 domestic worker, New York, NY, March 5, 2000.

21 According to U.S. Department of Labor regulations for the Fair Labor Standards Act, employers may either deduct the "fair value" of room and board if they keep records justifying the deductions or take deductions according to formulae in the regulations. 29 C.F.R. _ 531.3(b); 29 C.F.R. _ 552.100(c), (d). Human Rights Watch used the formulae to calculate allowable deductions for room and board.

22 Human Rights Watch telephone interviews, Anita Ortega, a G-5 domestic worker, March 30, 2000 and April 18, 2000.

23 The federal hourly minimum wage was $4.25 from September 1995 through September 1996 and $4.75 from October 1996 through May 1997. Human Rights Watch used these wages to calculate allowable deductions and determine the hourly wage received by Ortega during these periods-$1.70 and $1.77 respectively. Human Rights Watch averaged these figures and the federal minimum wage during these periods to reach the figures cited above.

24 The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) prohibits discrimination against women, and the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW Committee) has defined sexual harassment as including "such unwelcome sexually determined behavior as physical contact and advances, sexually coloured remarks, showing pornography and sexual demands" and has noted that "it is discriminatory when the woman has reasonable ground to believe that her objection would disadvantage her in connection with her employment . . . or when it creates a hostile working environment." Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, General Recommendation No. 19, A/47/38, 1992, paras. 17, 18 (emphasis added).

25 Ortega did not voluntarily leave her employer. In June 1997, Ortega returned to visit her family in Guatemala, during which time her employer allegedly called to tell her that the family had been called back to its home country and no longer needed Ortega's services, so she should not return to the United States. Ortega returned, however, as her employer had not yet cancelled her visa, and she later learned that her employer had lied to her and, in fact, remained in the United States until July 1999. Ortega is now working as an undocumented domestic worker in the United States.

26 Complaint, (S.D.N.Y. December 1999), paras. 7-10 (on file with Human Rights Watch); Human Rights Watch interview, Ahmed's attorney, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, New York, NY, March 6, 2000. Ahmed was a G-5 domestic worker.

27 Human Rights Watch interview, Ahmed's attorney, New York, NY, March 6, 2000.

28 Written Testimony by Fariba Ahmed Prepared for Congressional Domestic Workers Hearing, April 15, 2000; see also Complaint, (S.D.N.Y. December 1999), paras. 1, 12 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

29 Written Testimony by Ahmed . . . , April 15, 2000; Complaint, (S.D.N.Y. December 1999), para. 11 (on file with Human Rights Watch); Human Rights Watch interview, Ahmed's attorney, New York, NY, March 6, 2000.

30 Written Testimony by Ahmed . . . , April 15, 2000.

31 Ibid.; Complaint, (S.D.N.Y. December 1999), para. 13 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

32 Human Rights Watch interview, Ahmed's attorney, New York, NY, March 6, 2000.

33 Complaint, (S.D.N.Y. December 1999), paras. 1, 13 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

34 Written Testimony by Ahmed . . . , April 15, 2000; Complaint, (S.D.N.Y. December 1999), para. 14 (on file with Human Rights Watch); New York Times, January 2000; New York Times, July 2000. The newspaper article titles, authors, pages, and exact dates are omitted to preserve Ahmed's anonymity.

35 Complaint, (S.D.N.Y. December 1999), para. 14 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

36 Ibid., para. 15; see also New York Times, January 2000.

37 New York Times, January 2000.

38 Complaint, (S.D.N.Y. December 1999), para. 15 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

39 Ibid.

40 Complaint, (S.D.N.Y. December 1999), para. 19 (on file with Human Rights Watch); New York Police Department Seventeenth Precinct, Complaint Report, Complaint No. . . . , August 1999 (on file with Human Rights Watch). The full complaint number is omitted to preserve Ahmed's anonymity.

41 Written Testimony by Ahmed . . . , April 15, 2000.

42 Complaint, (S.D.N.Y. December 1999), paras. 10, 12 (on file with Human Rights Watch). Ahmed has remained in the United States illegally and is working as an undocumented live-in domestic worker.

43 Human Rights Watch interview, Ahmed's attorney, New York, NY, March 6, 2000

44 Letter from the employer's attorney to the Honorable Richard M. Berman, U.S. District Judge, Southern District of New York, January 18, 2000.

45 Order of Discontinuance, (S.D.N.Y. June 2000) (on file with Human Rights Watch). The settlement included a confidentiality agreement. Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Ahmed's attorney, August 1, 2000.

46 Human Rights Watch interview, Ahmed's attorney, New York, NY, March 6, 2000; Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Ahmed's attorney, January 16, 2001. The NYPD has refused to respond to Human Rights Watch's repeated inquiries regarding the closure of Ahmed's case.

47 New York Police Department Seventeenth Precinct, Complaint Report, Complaint No. . . . , August 1999 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

48 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Ahmed's attorney, January 16, 2001; Human Rights Watch telephone interview, FBI duty agent, January 23, 2001.

49 The term "assault" is used to refer to the attempt or threat to inflict injury on another, coupled with a display of force giving the victim reason to fear immediate bodily harm; no physical contact is required. See Black's Law Dictionary, 6th ed., s.v. "assault."

50 U.S. v. Alzanki, 54 F.3d 994, 999 (1st Cir. 1995). V.G. was a B-1 domestic worker. Her employer was convicted in federal district court of conspiring to hold and holding V.G. in involuntary servitude.

51 Ibid., p. 1004.

52 Ibid.

53 Complaint, (D. Md. 1998), para. 58 (on file with Human Rights Watch). Assefa's employer was ordered by the court to pay back wages, liquidated damages, and attorneys' fees and costs. Order Adopting Report and Recommendation, (D. Md. 1999), para. 3 (on file with Human Rights Watch). Assefa was employed as a G-5 domestic worker from February 1990 through June 1992, at which time her sponsoring employer resigned from his post at the IMF, thereby becoming ineligible to employ a G-5 domestic worker, resulting in Assefa's loss of immigration status. Assefa nonetheless continued to work for this employer until May 1998.

54 Commission on Human Rights, "Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, on trafficking in women, women's migration and violence against women, submitted in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolution 1997/44," E/CN.4/2000/68, February 29, 2000, para. 39.

55 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316, 999 U.N.T.S. 171, December 16, 1966, Article 12(1). The ICCPR entered into force for the United States on September 8, 1992.

56 General Comment 27 to Article 12, U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.9, November 2, 1999, para. 6. The U.N. Human Rights Committee was created by the ICCPR to monitor states party's compliance with the Covenant.

57 ICCPR, Article 12(2). The Migrant Workers Convention, which is not yet in force and to which the United States is not a party, specifically proscribes limitation of this right through passport confiscation. Migrant Workers Convention, Article 21.

58 9 FAM 41.21 N6.2(A)(3), (4) (February 9, 2000).

59 Human Rights Watch interview, Glenda Heredia, an A-3 domestic worker, Washington, DC, April 1, 2000.

60 Human Rights Watch interview, Paula Jiménez, an A-3 domestic worker, Washington DC, March 19, 2000.

61 Human Rights Watch interview, Margarita Pérez, an A-3 Ecuadorean domestic worker employed by a Latin American diplomat from 1996 through 1999, Washington, DC, April 8, 2000; Human Rights Watch interview, Teresa Espinoza, an A-3 domestic worker, Washington, DC, March 20, 2000.

62 Human Rights Watch interview, Veronica Cruz, an A-3 Ecuadorean domestic worker employed by a Latin American diplomat from 1993 through 1995, Washington, DC, April 8, 2000.

63 Human Rights Watch interview, Pérez, Washington, DC, April 8, 2000.

64 Complaint, (S.D.N.Y. March 1996), paras. 10, 37 (on file with Human Rights Watch). Florence Sadibou was a G-5 domestic worker. The parties settled the case. Order, (S.D.N.Y. February 1998) (on file with Human Rights Watch).

65 Rokeya Akhatar was a B-1 domestic worker. Based on her description of the process by which her visa was issued, Human Rights Watch believes that her sponsoring employer was a relative of the family with whom she and the employer resided in the United States. This suspected sponsoring employer returned to her country of origin after approximately two months, leaving Akhatar in the United States to work until January 1999 for other family members living permanently in the United States and ineligible to employ a B-1 domestic worker legally.

66 Human Rights Watch interview, Rokeya Akhatar, Astoria, NY, March 5, 2000.

67 See also Complaint and Jury Demand, (D. N.J. October 1999), para. 16 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

68 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Akhatar's attorney, April 12, 2000.

69 Human Rights Watch interview, Akhatar, Astoria, NY, March 5, 2000. Akhatar learned Hindi while working for a relative of her sponsoring employer in that relative's country of origin.

70 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Akhatar's attorney, April 12, 2000.

71 Answer to Complaint, (D. N.J. October 2000), paras. 29, 30 (on file with Human Rights Watch). The individual Human Rights Watch believes to be Akahatar's sponsoring employer, her husband, their daughter, and their son-in-law are defendants in the lawsuit, which, as of January 2001, was still pending. Akhatar has remained illegally in the United States and is working as an undocumented live-in domestic worker.

72 The International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which the U.S. has signed but not ratified, recognizes the right of everyone "to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work," including "safe and healthy working conditions," and the right to "the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health," including "medical service and medical attention in the event of sickness." International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 49, U.N. Doc. A/6316, 993 U.N.T.S. 171, December 16, 1966, Articles 7, 12.

73 Human Rights Watch interview, Elena Castro, a G-5 domestic worker, Washington, DC, March 26, 2000.

74 Alzanki, 54 F.3d at 999.

75 First Amended Complaint, (D.D.C. April 2000), paras. 25, 27 (on file with Human Rights Watch). Chávez' case against her employer and his wife was settled. Chávez was a G-5 domestic worker.

76 First Amended Complaint, (D.D.C. April 2000), paras. 32, 34-35 (on file with Human Rights Watch).

77 Answer, (D.D.C. February 2000), paras. 29-32 (on file with Human Rights Watch). Chávez has filed a civil case against her alleged rapist, which is still pending.

78 9 FAM 41.21 N6.2(A)(1) (February 9, 2000); 9 FAM 41.31, N6.3-2, N6.3-3 (August 30, 1988). U.S. citizens residing abroad and visiting, rather than assigned to, the United States temporarily with their B-1 domestic workers, however, are exempted from the requirement to forge employment contracts. 9 FAM 41.31, N6.3-1 (August 30, 1988).

79 The White House Office of the Press Secretary, "Remarks by the President at Signing of the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996," August 20, 1996; The White House Office of the Press Secretary, "Statement of The [sic] President at Signing of the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996," August 20, 1996.

80 29 U.C.S. _ 202(a), (b).

81 The right of everyone "to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work" recognized in the ICESCR includes the right to a "reasonable limitation of working hours" and "fair wages" that provide for a "decent living." ICESCR, Articles 7(a), (b), (d).

82 Human Rights Watch interview, Akhatar, Astoria, NY, March 5, 2000.

83 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Akhatar, January 14, 2001.

84 Three salaries were excluded from calculation because, in each case, it was impossible for Human Rights Watch to calculate, with the information we had, the amount of money earned by the worker as a migrant domestic worker with a special visa.

85 The cases reviewed by Human Rights Watch occurred in Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, and Washington, DC. Maryland, New York, New Jersey, and Virginia fix their minimum wage rates to the federal minimum wage. In Massachusetts and Washington, DC, the local minimum wage is higher than the federal minimum wage. As of January 2001, the hourly minimum wage in Washington, DC was $6.15 and in Massachusetts, $6.75.

86 As discussed below, the FLSA allows employers to deduct the reasonable cost of furnishing meals and lodging to live-in domestic workers, and the implementing regulations set forth percentages of the hourly minimum wage that will be accepted by the Department of Labor as reasonable deductions. Human Rights Watch used these percentages to calculate deductions for room and board and assumed employer provision of three meals daily. State laws may set different limits on reasonable deductions for room and board.

87 ICCPR, Article 17(1).

88 "Compilation of General Comments and General Recommendations Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies," General Comment 16 to Article 17, U.N. Doc. HRI\GEN\Rev.1, July 29, 1994, p. 21.

89 See, Ibid.

90 See "Compilation of General Comments and General Recommendations Adopted by Human Rights Treaty Bodies," General Comment 16 to Article 17, U.N. Doc. HRI\GEN\Rev.1, July 29, 1994, p. 21.

91 Human Rights Watch interview, Castro, Washington, DC, March 26, 2000. Castro requested that Human Rights Watch not provide the dates of her employment for fear that the dates might enable current World Bank officials to ascertain her identity and put her at risk of recriminations.

92 Human Rights Watch interview, Akhatar, Astoria, NY, March 5, 2000.

93 Human Rights Watch interview, Ai-jen Poo, Program Director, Women Workers Project, Committee Against Anti-Asian Violence, New York, NY, March 6, 2000.

94 Human Rights Watch interview, Daniela Sánchez, a G-5 domestic worker, Washington, DC, April 2, 2000.

95 Human Rights Watch interview, Espinoza, Washington, DC, March 20, 2000.

96 Human Rights Watch telephone interview, Martínez, April 17, 2000.

97 Human Rights Watch interview, Akhatar, Astoria, NY, March 5, 2000.

98 ICCPR, Article 8(2). The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the American Convention on Human Rights also prohibit servitude as does the Migrant Workers Convention. See Appendix III for a more detailed discussion of the international law prohibition of servitude.

99 See ICCPR, Article 2.

100 "Ownership is the common theme existing in all of the conventions concerning the abolition of slavery and slavery-like practices." Commission on Human Rights, "Contemporary Forms of Slavery: Working paper prepared by Mr. David Weissbrodt and Anti-Slavery International," E/CN.4/Sub.2/2000/3, May 26, 2000, para. 17.

101 See Manfred Nowak, U.N. Covenant on Civil and Political Rights: CCPR Commentary (Strasbourg: N.P. Engel, 1993), pp. 148-49; P. van Dijk and G.J.H. van Hoof, Theory and Practice of the European Convention on Human Rights (The Hague, The Netherlands: Kluwer Law International, 1998), p. 334; Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of a Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, "Revised draft Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime," (Draft Trafficking Protocol) A/AC.254/4/Add.3/Rev.7, July 19, 2000, Article 2 bis(c). Servitude is not defined in the final version of the Trafficking Protocol.

102 See, e.g., Commission on Human Rights, "Report of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery on its twenty-fourth session," E/CN.4/Sub.2/1999/17, July 20, 1999; Commission on Human Rights, "Report of the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery on its twenty-second session," E/CN.4/Sub.2/1997/13, July 11, 1997.

103 Commission on Human Rights, "Contemporary Forms of Slavery: Working paper prepared by Mr. David Weissbrodt and Anti-Slavery International," E/CN.4/Sub.2/2000/3, May 26, 2000, para. 41 (emphasis added).

104 ICCPR, Article 8(3). See Appendix III for a more detailed discussion of the international law prohibition of forced labor.

105 The "ILO Declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work" has also included the elimination of forced labor as a "fundamental right," which all ILO Members, including the U.S., have an obligation to promote. International Labour Conference, "ILO Declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work," 86th Session, Geneva, June 18, 1998.

106 Convention concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour (ILO No. 29), 39 U.N.T.S. 55, June 28, 1930, Article 2(1). Both the ICCPR and ILO Forced Labour Convention contain exceptions to the prohibition of forced or compulsory labor, none of which is applicable to the labor situations of live-in migrant domestic workers.

107 International Labor Conference, 1979 General Survey of the Reports relating to the Forced Labor Convention, 1930 (No. 29) and the Abolition of Forced Labor Convention, 1975, (No. 105), Report of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, 65th Session, Geneva, 1979, Report III, para. 21. The ILO Committee of Experts is comprised of a group of independent experts and reviews reports submitted by ILO member states on their ratification of ILO conventions and recommendations.

108 The issue has been addressed by the European Court of Human Rights, the Draft Trafficking Protocol of April 2000, the ILO Committee of Experts, and ILO responses to representations made pursuant to Article 24 of the ILO Constitution, which allows associations of employers or workers to make representations to the ILO Governing Body alleging that a Member has failed to observe any Convention to which it is a party.

109 Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, Article 3(a), in "Crime prevention and criminal justice: Report of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Elaboration of a Convention against Transnational Organized Crime on the work of its first to eleventh sessions," A/55/383, November 2, 2000. The United States has signed but has not ratified the Protocol.

110 Xiomara Salgado, psychotherapist, Montgomery County, Maryland, Victim Assistance and Sexual Assault Program, presenting at the Campaign for Migrant Domestic Workers' Rights Public Briefing, Washington, DC, February 15, 2000.

111 Affidavit, Washington, DC, January 22, 1999, paras. 4, 5 (on file with Human Rights Watch). Kuwa was a G-5 domestic worker. The affidavit was sworn in conjunction with Kuwa's asylum application, which was granted.

112 Ibid.

113 Ibid., para. 6.

114 Ibid., paras. 2, 9, 10. In her affidavit, she also alleged that her sister was arrested by the Security Forces in Sudan and tortured because she refused to give details about Kuwa's whereabouts. Similarly, she alleged that the Security Forces also arrested her best friend, telling her that she was arrested in an investigation of Kuwa. Ibid., paras. 9, 10.

115 Ibid., para. 5.

116 Alzanki, 54 F.3d at 1002.

117 Ibid., p. 999. If V.G. had wandered outside, she would not have been able to prove that she was documented because her employer confiscated her passport immediately upon her arrival at his apartment.

118 Ibid.

119 Ibid., pp. 1004 n. 9, 1105, 1105 n. 10.

120 Ibid., p. 999; Judy Rakowsky, "Man found guilty of enslaving his maid," Boston Globe, March 22, 1994, p. 23.

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