Modern slavery in the UK: How foreign domestic workers are exploited
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00:00 Last year, 1,800 people thought to be victims of domestic exploitation were referred to
00:05 the UK modern slavery protection system.
00:08 Now, that is a huge amount of people and it comes right as British lawmakers are talking
00:12 about bringing in new immigration laws that would bar some migrants from any protection.
00:17 We're going to be talking about those issues with Arnaud Pedram from InfoMigrant in just
00:21 a moment, but first your report highlighting the problem.
00:24 This is the place that I'm talking about, that I came from, we came from.
00:33 Lily was brought to the UK by her UAE employer in 2019 to work as a domestic worker.
00:39 Soon after her arrival, she ran away from her employer to save her life.
00:43 He was screaming, talking to someone on the phone and then he immediately took the gun
00:51 and pointed at us, like, "If you guys will escape in this house, I will shoot you," because
00:57 three other Filipinos escaped from this family.
01:01 The mansion was guarded by 12 security men.
01:04 There were cameras everywhere.
01:06 After sneaking her way out, Lily contacted Filipino community organizations who welcome
01:11 victims of modern slavery.
01:14 The Filipino Domestic Workers Association rescues dozens of women like her every year.
01:20 Most of them were not given their salary.
01:25 They work almost, say, 16 hours or more.
01:30 They have no day off, so there's no way for them to get out of the place.
01:37 Some of them said that they tried to go out, but the doors are locked and there's no way
01:44 for them to get out of the building.
01:47 They were not given food.
01:49 In the UK, victims of slavery can apply for protections under the National Referral Mechanism,
01:54 but the procedure is long and difficult.
01:57 Lily has been waiting for two years for the decision on her case.
02:01 In the meantime, she has been working and she set up a house for other Filipinas like
02:05 her escaping forced labor.
02:07 These two persons here, they're also from NRN.
02:12 They just leave.
02:14 Finally, I feel freedom.
02:17 I can go outside, I can talk to anyone, because before we cannot talk to anyone.
02:21 Like, you know, like, say, in Filipino, no, we're not allowed freedom to eat, freedom
02:28 to eat anything, you know, everything.
02:31 Like we can talk to our family anytime.
02:34 Yeah.
02:35 It's more important for me.
02:38 Last year, about 1,800 victims of domestic exploitation were referred to the UK Modern
02:43 Slavery Protection System.
02:45 The FDWA is fighting to get better domestic worker visas to prevent slavery and better
02:50 protections for victims of slave labor.
02:52 They did not decide to come here.
02:54 They were brought here by the rich employers.
02:59 They have already been abused where they came from.
03:02 They were brought here and the abuse continues.
03:07 And who will protect them?
03:10 We were only able to rescue a few of them.
03:14 How about those who were not able to seek help?
03:17 Migrants' rights are human rights.
03:20 Domestic workers' rights.
03:23 That report from Arno Pedram, who joins me now on the set.
03:26 Arno, you work for Info Migrant, which is our sister website filled with practical information
03:30 to help migrants.
03:31 Tell us about these women.
03:32 How did they end up in these situations?
03:34 Who are they?
03:35 Yeah, so it's important to note that this is a very specific subset of victims of modern
03:38 slavery in the UK.
03:39 It's Filipina domestic workers.
03:41 And so they are women who left the Philippines because they're supporting a sick parent or
03:46 child or supporting their children in general.
03:49 They're single mothers.
03:51 And they leave for Hong Kong, Singapore, the Gulf countries, where they work for an employer
03:56 there.
03:57 And they're tricked into signing a visa to go to the UK and often taken to the UK without
04:02 their consent.
04:05 And once they arrive there, they end up in the situations that we describe in the report.
04:09 And they're under a visa.
04:10 They're here legally.
04:11 But the visa is a bit difficult for them to, it's difficult for them to switch employers
04:16 on that visa and get away from these dangerous situations.
04:20 And you say in the report that the national referral mechanism is complicated.
04:23 Tell us about that.
04:24 Yeah, so there's two things.
04:26 So once these women escape these situations, they can fall in what's called the gap of
04:30 protections by advocacy group.
04:32 Basically, that is if they're exploited by their employer, they're like violating labor
04:36 law, but it does not amount to slavery.
04:39 They fall in this gap where they're not protected by the NRM.
04:44 And their only option is to take a lawyer and go to court against their employer, which
04:47 is absolutely not something that's reasonable for them to consider.
04:51 Like they don't have the money or the time.
04:52 And their employer is really rich.
04:54 So that's absolutely out of the cards.
04:56 And the second thing is the waiting time.
04:58 So we'll see on the on screen, there are two steps to the NRM.
05:01 You get a first answer within five days, and then a second answer about two years after
05:06 that.
05:07 And the waiting time is increasing.
05:10 The issue is if you get your first answer after your worker visa has expired, you cannot
05:14 work while you wait for the second decision, which is also something that is impossible
05:18 for them to consider because they urgently need to bring money back home to a sick parent,
05:22 to children that are alone, fending for themselves.
05:25 And so that's pushing them again to work in informal labor markets and potentially get
05:29 enslaved all over again.
05:31 And what happens to these employers, many of them very wealthy, these employers who
05:35 are exploiting these women?
05:36 So it's very hard to find statistics on what happens to those.
05:40 But the advocacy groups and the referral group that I talked with told me that the rates
05:45 are abysmally low.
05:46 And they point to the fact that the London police used to have a trafficking unit, but
05:51 it was disbanded in around 2010.
05:54 So that's making it harder to take those cases into account.
05:57 Lily, that we see in the report, her employer that we see here, her employer is from the
06:03 UAE.
06:04 And basically, she told me that her case was dropped because he left for the UAE, got in
06:08 trouble there with the law for an unrelated case.
06:13 And so they dropped her case and she will never see justice.
06:16 And what about the advocates who are trying to help these women?
06:18 What do they want to help protect them?
06:20 So they want the visas to be more flexible so that the women can switch employers more
06:25 easily, that they can apply for protections and not fall into this thing where they have
06:29 to not work for all this time while they're waiting for a final decision.
06:35 And they're hoping for also more efforts to prosecute those employers and justice.
06:40 And for our viewers, if people want to learn more about the procedure, they can go to the
06:45 website, I'm assuming.
06:46 That's correct.
06:47 So we have an article that details all of the technicalities of the NRM.
06:50 So you will find that on our website at infomigrants.net.
06:54 OK.
06:55 Thank you so much, Arnaud, for that and for your reporting.
06:57 Pedro, I'm there from our sister website, InfoMigrant. Thank you very much.
07:01 Thank you.