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>> So good afternoon.
And thank you all for being here
for this lunch hour lecture here at UCL.
The topic of my talk is what is modern slavery,
as you will see here as, you know.
And most people in this audience will become familiar
with the concept of slavery
as it has become historically understood.
What was slavery historically?
We find the traditional definition of slavery
in the 1926 United Nation Slavery Convention.
According to this convention, Article One, of this convention,
slavery is the state [inaudible] condition of a person
over whom any or all of the followers attaching to the right
of ownership are exercised.
This is what is slavery.
The legal right of ownership, as you can see
from this definition, is central
in the traditional definition of slavery.
The objectification of the individual,
the power to buy an individual and sell a person,
to buy and sell a person is what was central
in the traditional definition of slavery.
The institutional of slavery approached people as objects,
and this is what made it - brought it contrary -
why it was contrary to human dignity.
This type of slavery has been abolished today in most -
in the developing world, at least.
For this reason, some people in this room may think
that slavery does not exist in the developed world either.
Most people in this room will probably think
that we don't have slavery nowadays.
We may still have injustice in the employment relationship,
but [inaudible] may never amount to what we call slavery.
Is this right?
Do we have examples of slavery in the present day world
in the UK, in Europe and elsewhere?
In order to answer this question, does slavery exist
in the UK and Europe, I will focus
on the example of domestic work.
I am aware that there are other examples that people may have
in mind, like human trafficking for *** exploitation
or children's trafficking, but I will not talk about them today,
only about domestic work.
What is domestic work?
What are domestic workers?
Domestic workers usually work -
domestic workers typically work in private homes.
They perform various household tasks such as cleaning,
gardening, looking after kids, babies,
looking after the elderly.
This type of work is most of the times done by women.
There may be live-in domestic workers when they stay
with a family where they work or individual
where they work live-in domestic workers or live
out domestic workers where they don't stay with the family.
They may be full-time, employees full-time or part-time.
We should not underestimate the importance of domestic work
for contemporary - for the contemporary world.
Many people in this audience may have a domestic worker,
perhaps not live in, perhaps not full time,
but perhaps just once a week for a couple of hours a week.
Most of the times domestic workers are treated well
by their employers, and that is important, of course.
Domestic labor may well be a desirable job for workers
and who are not highly skilled and may not find it easy,
easy to find a different job.
Domestic work, like other jobs, can be fulfilling
for the employee, for the worker.
The worker develops a personal relationship of trust
with the employer, and this is very much valued
in an employment relationship.
With changes happening in the labor market
with women nowadays working outside home,
in the labor market outside home,
there is a real need for domestic labor.
It is beneficial for the employer.
It is beneficial for the worker
and for the labor market as a whole.
However, domestic labor also sets challenges.
There are serious challenges
with the regulation of domestic labor.
[Inaudible] that often characterizes the relationship
between the employer and the worker may make him or her feel
like a family member or seem
like a family member, not a worker.
And so it seems that it is an informal relationship.
It doesn't really feel like an employment relationship.
It feels less formal.
Moreover importantly, domestic work is typical -
is done in the privacy of the employer's household.
The domestic authorities, the national authorities,
the authorities do not have access to the household.
So domestic workers are hidden, particularly
when they are live-in domestic workers
where they live with the employer.
The authorities can never have access to them ,
and they can never have access to the authorities.
In addition, so they may be living there hidden at home.
At the same time domestic workers are very often migrants.
There's stages, migrant workers are often preferred
by the employers, particularly we're talking
about live-in domestic workers who care
about for kids or the elderly.
So employers prefer migrants.
However, at the same time the immigration stages,
the immigration stages
of domestic workers makes them more vulnerable
to ill-treatment, and we will see that in a minute.
So domestic workers have an intimate relationship
that feels a little bit informal with the employer,
feels a bit more informal than other employment relationships.
They are migrant.
They are women.
They are hidden in the privacy of the employer's home.
These are some key characteristics.
In recent years what has happened is
that various international organizations,
like the European Union, the Council of Europe,
and the International Labor Organization have argued
that domestic workers are indeed subject to abuse.
In addition, various NGO's have argued,
like Anti-Slavery International, [inaudible], Human Rights Watch,
Justice for Domestic Workers.
NGO's have argued that domestic workers may be subject
to abuse, indeed.
There is - we can see data on this.
What are the types of abuse suffered by domestic workers?
That is just a small example.
But of course, there are a lot
of information online and various reports.
So according to data that is found in a report by [inaudible]
and London Based NGO, from those that are registered
with this organization domestic workers, who registered
with this organization, about 300 people every year.
But these are - this is the data here, is just from 2010.
60 percent of those registered with it were not allowed to go
out unaccompanied; 65 percent had their passport withheld;
54 percent suffered psychological abuse;
18 percent suffered physical abuse or assault;
3 percent were sexually abused;
26 percent did not receive adequate meals;
and 49 percent did not have their own room.
This is just a small example, but there is plenty
of information online and various reports.
Let us hear the voices of some London Based domestic workers.
This is a short video by Anti-Slavery International.
I will only show 2 minutes, if it works.
And - but I recommend that you watch the whole of it.
Here it is.
[ Music ]
>> [video] I would say that the
in Philippines slavery is very much alive,
contrary to the belief in the- you know, in Europe
and in the North, that slavery is actually abolished two
hundred years ago.
I would say that here
in the Philippines we are still fighting to abolish it.
It is very much manifested in the life
of our domestic [inaudible].
>> I think the people around me are cruel, you know,
cruel people, because inside the house [inaudible]
and children are very cruel to me and they just treated me
as if I am nothing that I am dirt.
[ Speaking Foreign Language ]
>> Sometimes I go to once a month in a country house
and clean the country house big bungalow.
I think [inaudible] bedroom.
I clean everything.
And I look up garden, two horsey,
two ponies there and [inaudible].
I look up everything and come back.
Sometimes really - but I am really tired.
But what can I do?
>> Even here in London, he still doing the things.
He just asked me to go to the bathroom
because the bathroom is leaking, even if it's not.
>> So he just slapped me on the bottom and tried to harass me,
like, hold my private things.
So there is nothing I can
because even here I don't know nobody.
But two o'clock in the morning he was sleeping.
I just put my - I put some clothes to a black bag,
a bin bag, because that's the time, like,
I throw it in the bin.
Like, I think that was on Tuesday.
I put all my - some of my clothes in there
and then I just run away from him.
He was sleeping all the time.
I do not have nothing.
I don't have money and anything.
But I just walking on the street until in the morning,
like two o'clock until seven o'clock in the morning.
I don't know London.
I don't know nobody.
So until - I met one Filipino woman and, when I met her,
she just took me to her place.
[ Pause ]
>> So the live-in and working conditions,
as you saw from this video,
domestic workers can be appalling.
That's a long video by Anti-Slavery International.
You can watch more of these online.
So what is the rule of the law?
What does the law do for domestic workers?
Sadly, national employment legislation as well
as immigration, legislative
in many jurisdictions including the UK,
even more sadly puts domestic workers at a disadvantage.
And I'll give you a few samples.
First of all, labor law
on working conditions differentiates the treatment
of domestic workers from other categories of workers.
In the UK, for example, domestic workers are exempted
from legislation on working time, minimum wage
and health and safety.
Regulate - for example, Regulation 19
of the working time regulation excludes domestic workers
in private homes from the majority of regulations,
the maximum weekly working time, no maximum working time.
Maximum working time for young workers, no maximum time
for young workers; length of time at work exemption,
no [inaudible] by young workers as well.
They are exempted.
On minimum wage, the UK minimum wage regulations
of 1999 exempt family members and those living
within the family household who are not family but work
in the household or for the family business.
So the minimum wage regulations excludes family members
and those that are treated like family.
Domestic workers are classified as family in the law,
and so they are exempted from the minimum wage regulations.
Another area of law - which is also striking - another area
of law that treats domestic workers differently
to other workers is the health and safety.
Here in the UK we have the Health and Safety at Work Act
of 1974 which regulates working conditions,
inspection and sanctions.
This act, which regulates labor inspections,
explicitly excludes domestic workers.
Inspections are not permitted in private households,
and domestic workers are explicitly excluded
from the Health and Safety at Work Act.
So we see that domestic workers are found
in their regulatory gap.
There is a gap, very little protection of there -
minimum protection of their basic labor rights,
if any at all, and then no monitoring
of their workplace conditions by inspectors.
To make things even worse, we have immigration law
that creates further precariousness
of domestic workers, further vulnerability
for domestic workers.
Immigration legislation on domestic workers,
in the UK immigration rules, until recently,
permitted the domestic worker
who came here accompanying an employer
to change employer but not work sector.
There are about 15,000 domestic workers that come
into country every year accompanying a
particular employer.
Until recently, they could change employer
if the employer ill-treated them.
In 2012, the UK government changed these regulations.
And now domestic workers who arrive
to the country accompanying an employer cannot change employer.
If they are ill-treated by their employer and they report it
to the authorities, they will be deported.
So now domestic workers are tied to their employer
when they are brought with an employer,
the special visa of domestic workers.
They are tied to their employer.
And even though there are various NGO's
such as Anti-Slavery,
the International [inaudible] Justice of Domestic Workers,
opposed strongly this reform because they said
that this would lead to modern slavery.
The regulations took effect earlier this year.
Finally, I will mention very briefly two further categories
of domestic workers that suffer special vulnerability.
These are irregular migrants and those that accompany diplomats.
Irregular migrants and regular migrants.
What happens in that courts in this country say
that if you are an irregular migrant, then your contract
of employment is illegal.
Because your contract is illegal,
you can not claim anything under your contract.
You can not even claim wages.
So a regular migrant domestic worker who has worked
for an employer will not even be entitled to his or her wages
because the employment contract was illegal.
Finally, very briefly,
the diplomatic immunity that's organizations have big issue.
Diplomatic immunity what happens is the diplomats enjoy the
diplomatic immunity.
Very often diplomats will come to this country
or to various other countries.
They bring with them their domestic workers.
But even if they ill-treat them,
they can not be held accountable exactly
because they enjoy diplomatic immunity.
In this situation, there are videos
that you can watch online.
There was an interesting BBC documentary, and this -
in this situation you may see
that we have more serious examples of our views.
So the law does not treat domestic workers very well.
I hope I have made this very clear.
Domestic workers are excluded from a lot
of labor protected legislation;
so labor law makes them precarious.
Immigration law ties them to a particular employer
when they accompany this employer to the country.
So they cannot escape, unless they decide to escape and,
in this case, they will be deported.
And those small percentage that accompany diplomats,
they cannot hold them accountable for serious abuse.
Irregular migrants also suffer special precariousness.
[ Pause ]
>> So domestic workers in the UK
and various other countries are very precarious.
Can these be classified as modern slavery?
To answer this question, the answer - No.
The answer to this question has come
through International Human Rights Law.
So I will talk to you about a landmark decision
of the European Court of Human Rights,
that you must all be familiar with, because a lot of -
attracted a lot of press in [inaudible] in this country.
The judgment of the European Court of Human Rights,
that I will talk about, is Siliadin versus France of 2005.
There was a young woman, 60 years old I think at the time,
that she was brought to France from Togo by her employers.
They told her that she would work for them a bit,
but she would also be educated.
But instead, they didn't send her to school.
They just kept her at home to do domestic work.
She had to clean the house.
She had to clean the employer's office.
She had to look after three children,
two children and one baby.
She Had to work almost 15 hours a day, seven days a week.
She never had a day off.
She was never paid.
She got a few euros only for her work for -
yet she almost never paid.
When she escaped from her employers,
she found out that French law did not treat the employers
as criminals.
It was not a criminal offense in France to treat the workers
as [inaudible] was treated.
She exhausted domestic remedy.
She went to the European Court of Human Rights.
The European Convention of Human Rights is mainly about civilian
and political rights;
their right of free expression, freedom of religion.
It's not so much about labor rights.
However, it has one provision.
Article Four of the European Convention of Human Rights,
that we have here, that says no one shall be held
in slavery or servitude.
No one shall be required
to perform forced or compulsory labor.
So the European Convention of Human Rights is civil
and political rights document, protects,
prohibits slavery and servitude.
The European Court of Human Rights looked at her situation
and she said - and it said that - the court said
that this was not slavery.
>> She's not a slave, because the courts used the definition
of slavery, that we find in the 1926 convention,
that I mentioned in the first slide,
which says that for slavery the right of ownership is essential.
The European Court of Human Rights said she was not a slave
exactly because she was not owned.
There was no legal right of ownership.
No legal right of ownership.
However, the court classified her situation as servitude,
which is the same, in effect,
because Article Four the European Convention
of Human Rights was still applicable.
So the court said that this was servitude,
the situation of [inaudible].
On servitude, it said what is prohibited, said the court,
is a particularly serious form of denial of freedom.
It includes, in addition to the obligation
to perform certain services, the obligation of the person to live
in another person's property, to live on the property
and then possibility of altering this situation.
The Court said that [inaudible] was entirely
at the employer's mercy since her papers had been confiscated,
her passport had been taken.
And she has been promised, she had been given a false promise
that her immigration stages would be regularized.
So for the first time in the Siliadin versus France case,
the case of domestic worker for the first time in its history,
the European Court of Human Rights found a violation
of Article Four of the European Convention on Human Rights.
This was a landmark judgment, the judgment Siliadin
versus France of the European Court of Human Rights.
It recognized that workers rights should be classified
as human rights in certain circumstances.
It gave new life to provision that looked [inaudible]
because it had never been used for many decades.
It attracted attention around the world.
It even attracted attention here in the UK.
And this judgment Siliadin versus France was discussed
in parliamentary debates here that led importantly
to the adoption of legislation here, Section Seventy-one
of the Coroners and Justice Act.
legislation that criminalizes slavery.
That was in 2009, thanks to Siliadin to a certain degree.
Siliadin was also -- so it had a lot of impact in this judgment
by raising awareness around the world about living
and working conditions of domestic workers.
Siliadin was also discussed during the drafting
of another landmark internationally,
through the international labor organization.
Convention on domestic workers, that was adopted in 2011.
This convention takes a human rights approach.
It says that workers rights,
domestic workers right are human rights,
and it sets certain standards
to which all [inaudible] parties will have to abide with,
with which all [inaudible] parties have to abide with.
So we had -- we've had a lot of developments in recent years.
It should be said here that even though this convention will
enter into force next year, the UK government was one
of the very few governments that said it's not going
to support the convention.
Although there was about 300 countries
that supported the convention, the UK government has said
that they will not support this convention.
It will not sign up to it.
It [inaudible] in the ILO,
the International Labor Organization.
So given that the UK legislation fell short
of international standards, it's not a surprise
that the UK government will not sign up to it,
but it is very troubling.
So what is modern slavery from what we've said this far?
Key elements of modern slavery I think are these three.
First of all, what I will call here legislative precariousness,
this is the legislation which I mentioned earlier,
labor immigration legislation, which excludes certain groups
of workers from a number of legal rights.
And in this way it makes them very vulnerable
to our views, to [inaudible].
Second, the lack of decent options for these workers.
The choice of domestic workers face is often
between poverty back home or even if they are
from this country, from the same country, if they're nationals
of the country or homelessness.
For instance, and on one hand and on the other hand,
taking up domestic work makes them very vulnerable
to serious abuse.
Finally, the social reality statistics show,
that we saw earlier, statistics show that domestic workers are
in fact routinely abused,
and their life becomes often the object
of the employer's control.
So we have legislation
that makes domestic workers precarious.
We have the social reality.
We have poverty.
The alternatives that they have are not decent.
Third, the social reality employers do in fact,
in certain circumstance, of course, and not always,
not the majority of circumstances,
the fact that in reality, domestic workers are abused.
So these are key elements of modern slavery,
at least in relation to domestic work.
So to conclude, that we have a bit
of time of questions as well.
[ Pause ]
>> So I have shown I hope that we're in the process
of recognizes -- recognizing that abuse of domestic workers,
and now they're victim of trafficking,
can be classified as modern slavery.
It is classified as modern slavery today
by national organizations and the national NGO's
and other organizations.
I should [inaudible] here that the European Court
of Human Rights is not alone in focusing
on domestic labor as modern slavery.
On Tuesday, 25 September 2012,
Your President Barack Obama gave a very powerful talk
on human trafficking.
He described the abuses
of workers rights as modern slavery.
Obama undertook the commitment to make this matter a priority
for his administration.
He said we see you.
We hear you.
We insist on your dignity.
Certain workers rights like this in the top -
on top of the agenda has a lot of symbolic power.
This is particularly so when coming from the President
of a country that has been scarred by slavery historically.
Obama said, I do not use the word slavery lightly,
and he went on to explain.
I quote, when a man desperate for work finds himself
in a factory or in a fishing boat or in a field working,
toiling, for little or no pay and beaten if he tries
to escape, said Obama, that is slavery.
When a woman is locked in a sweatshop or trapped in a home
as a domestic servant alone and abused and incapable
of living, that's slavery.
That's the end of the quote.
So Obama himself classified domestic slavery --
domestic work in certain conditions as modern slavery.
The classification of labor rights abuses modern slavery
does not only have symbolic power,
it also has practical consequences.
It mobilizes human rights organizations
as well as the civil society.
And importantly, it imposes positive obligations,
legal obligations, on states to take measures,
to take steps to address the abuse.
States have to take action.
States have to take action to discover
and address the abusing practice.
So slavery has many faces.
And human rights role has shown that it has power
to capture modern aspects of slavery.
It remains to be seen
if the authorities will take the necessary steps
to address the problem in their practice.
Thank you.
[ Applause ]
>> Thank you very much.
Do we have any questions?
There are some mic's here.
And if you have a question, we'd like you
to use - yes, there's one.
[ Pause ]
>> Thanks.
That was very interesting, very troubling.
Do you know how the government defended its position
on domestic workers and the International Convention
on Human Rights, you mentioned?
>> Yes. Ms. [inaudible] has said in a statement
over UK representative at the International labor conference.
We would not consider it appropriate or practical
to extend criminal health
and safety legislation including inspections
to cover private households employing domestic workers.
They said it's impracticable.
And then she said it would be difficult, for instance,
to hold elderly individuals from employee carriers
to the same standards as large companies.
That's what they said.
I don't see why, of course, because if they treat them,
if they commit crimes,
they should be held accountable as large companies.
But this is what a government said, that it is impracticable.
There are issues with privacy, for example, right.
So the government here may say we can not enter
private households.
>> We can not send health inspectors to private households
because they -- that violates the privacy
of the employer's home.
But this has been resolved in other countries.
For instance, I think in France health inspectors,
health and safety inspectors, work inspectors,
can take a special permit from a judge, for instance,
in order to visit a household either is --
if there is a reason to believe
that they ill-treated a domestic worker.
So the reasons are practical reasons, I guess.
But they can be resolved.
And the ILO convention shows how it can be resolved.
>> Thank you.
Anymore? Yes, we have another one here.
[ Pause ]
>> Hi. Thank you very much for your talk.
It's very inspiring.
I know you said right at the beginning that you're not --
you're going to focus on domestic workers and not at all
about human trafficking.
But some of the cases [inaudible]
and actually struck me as it could be a trafficking case,
because all the elements
of the [inaudible] given a false promise,
have documents taken away.
So my question to you is, do you think that if we were to view
that case from the [inaudible] of a human trafficking case,
rather than the humans right case,
that would actually stigmatize it further?
And would that be the way forward?
Or would you have rather keep it within the human rights debate?
>> Yes, you're totally right.
It can be classified as a case of human trafficking.
I think that's usually human trafficking is seen
as sex trafficking is only seen as human trafficking.
But we had some data couple of months ago I think
from the government that showed that 10 percent of those
that are trafficked, are trafficked for domestic work,
and 20 percent for sex trafficking.
Yet it is -- there are human trafficking issues as well
in the domestic labor sector.
But at the same time it's important to realize, I think,
to also keep in mind that there may be nationals of the country
that are still very vulnerable
to laborize abuse domestic worker.
So yeah, there may be human trafficking victims.
And it is worth examining it as a human trafficking issue,
but not all the human trafficking victims.
>> Thank you.
>> Any other questions?
>> There are some questions at the top.
[ Pause ]
>> Thank you for the very interesting topics.
It's very troubling.
I wondered what the gender dimension to this?
I imagine I know but I wondered what it is.
And [inaudible] very much of the film, the color purple,
because there's an entrapment in a domestic situation
which isn't for payment.
I was the first married mother to be a barrister,
Helena Kennedy the Second.
And I know even know
that certain people make abusive remarks to me as I go around,
and it's quite offensive.
And it doesn't seem that you have any power or strength
because you're just -
your impoverished issue say you're dehumanized,
you're humiliated.
And because you're impoverished, you're not able
to have the same ability to, you know, do the things
that you would otherwise.
But I'm a human rights lawyer.
And I've spent my life trying to help other people.
Thank you.
>> Yes. Great.
Thank you very much.
That is very important I mention of this discussion.
There is very -
[ Inaudible ]
>> Welcome back.
Great. Thank you for coming.
You're right.
The gender I mentioned is very important in the situation,
in the treatment of domestic workers.
First of all, we say that women can participate in their work
in the labor market outside home,
women in the Western world, like me, like all of us here,
and that is good for the - for gender [inaudible].
But at the same time domestic workers who are employed
like this in the secondary labor market in this - yeah,
in the secondary labor market, they're still women.
So this is one aspect of it that's very interesting.
Another aspect of it in which [inaudible]
from Oxford has written is that because the employers are women,
the domestic workers are women, the employers
in the domestic labor sector, more or less,
they are [inaudible] to maintain this state of inequality,
the employers, where they are women,
and they treat domestic workers exactly for that reason.
Yeah, it is a very important aspect of the question.
Thank you.
>> Another question here.
[ Pause ]
>> Are there jurisdictions in the world that seem
to have resolved this problem with whatever laws
or inspections or other procedures that you could cite
as examples of how things might be done elsewhere?
>> Yes, thank you.
There are other jurisdictions
that are equal problematic to the UK.
But also there are other jurisdictions
that covers all of these questions.
And as I said, for instance, on labor inspections,
in certain countries you can get a special permit from a judge
in order to inspect a private household.
On minimum wage, in other jurisdictions,
they're not exempted from minimum wage regulations.
I think the ILO convention on Domestic workers,
if you are interested in having a look at it,
shows exactly what needs to be done in order
to address the problems in UK law
and the laws in other countries.
So there are plenty of examples
where these issues have been addressed.
But -- and of course, I mean, for instance, on immigration,
on the visas, the special visas for domestic workers
in this country until April, I think,
within five domestic workers on the employers.
It's now with only immigration concern.
Let's say that the government has --
that they decided to tie them to the employer,
so even in this country with being better
than we are right now.
>> Thank you.
Any other questions?
[ Pause ]
>> If not, then it seems we have a satisfied audience here.
And we just like to thank Virginia
for a wonderful lecture [applause].