'Am I Free Now?' Overseas Domestic Workers in Slavery

Abstract

This article examines the United Kingdom’s overseas domestic worker and diplomatic domestic worker visas in place since 2012. These visas tie workers to an employer by making it unlawful for them to change employer, even if they have been seriously exploited or abused. The article presents the findings of a qualitative study, a series of semi-structured interviews of overseas domestic workers. It explores how this vulnerable and difficult (for researchers) to reach group of workers experience these visas in practice. The workers reported instances of exploitation and abuse by the employers with whom they arrived in the UK. Having escaped abusive employers they have become undocumented, and report being trapped in ongoing cycles of exploitation. The article assesses what light this empirical exploration sheds on the question whether the visa is contrary to the prohibition of slavery, servitude, forced and compulsory labour in article 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Keywords: domestic labour, human rights, workers' rights, overseas domestic workers, modern slavery