UK Supreme Court sides with Filipina maid in modern slavery case
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (UK) has ruled in favor of a Filipina domestic worker who was exploited by her Saudi diplomat employer in London, saying that foreign diplomats cannot use immunity to escape criminal prosecution and compensation claims.
The UK’s highest court, in its judgment, said that exploitation of migrant workers by foreign diplomats is a “significant problem,” and ruled that it falls within the “commercial activity” exception to immunity under the diplomatic convention.
Josephine Wong, a Filipina domestic worker who was first employed by London-based Saudi diplomat Khalid Basfar in November 2015 in Saudi Arabia and then moved with them to the UK in August 2016, said that she was allegedly treated as a slave, forcing her to wear a bell everyday to be at his “family’s beck and call.”
According to the court, Wong’s employer regularly yells at her and calls her offensive names, and when the family was at home, she was only allowed to eat their leftover food.
“Mr. Basfar’s treatment of Ms. Wong amounted to a form of modern slavery, whether it was forced labour, servitude or trafficking,” the Court’s judgment said. “This shows that the relationship between them was not that of employment freely entered into, so as to be an ordinary part of Mr. Basfar’s daily life in the UK as a resident diplomat. And it shows that his conduct amounted to a commercial activity practised (in so far as it matters) for personal profit.”
Although the high court accepted Basfar’s claim that ordinary employment of a domestic worker by a foreign diplomat doesn’t constitute the exercise of a commercial activity, the court ruled that modern slavery is incomparable to ordinary employer-employee relationship.
“We cannot accept that exploiting a domestic worker by compelling her to work in circumstances of modern slavery is comparable to an ordinary employment relationship of a kind that is incidental to the daily life of a diplomat (and his family) in the receiving state,” the UK Supreme Court said.
“There is a material and qualitative difference between these activities. Employment is a voluntary relationship, freely entered into and governed by the terms of a contract,” the court further pointed out.
Meanwhile, Wong will now be in charge whether she will seek compensation claims against her former employer, given that the UK Supreme Court has ruled in her favor.
Marvin Joseph Ang is a news and creative writer who follows developments in politics, democracy, and popular culture. He advocates for a free press and national democracy. The views expressed are his own.
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