Thread: Diplomats’ Abuse of Workers They Bring With Them

Government Report Points to Diplomats’ Abuse of Workers They Bring With Them


By KIRK SEMPLE
Published: July 30, 2008
Every year, thousands of foreigners are brought to the United States, mainly to New York and Washington, to work in the homes of diplomats: cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping and caring for the diplomats’ children.

For the envoys, such workers bring a knowledge of their traditions and customs and help provide them with a seamless transition to the United States.

For the workers, who arrive on special visas and are often poor and uneducated, the arrangement promises an opportunity to earn enough money to support their own families back home.

But immigrant and human rights advocates have warned for years that behind the veil of diplomatic immunity, some envoys have subjected their workers to hardships that range from underpayment and excessive hours to physical and psychological injury, creating conditions that can amount to indentured servitude or even slavery.

According to a report released on Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, since 2000 at least 42 foreigners brought to the United States to work as live-in workers have said that they were abused by their employers in some way.

The report is the most comprehensive survey by the federal government of abuses of household workers by foreign diplomats, said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, a Democrat and chairman of a Senate subcommittee on human rights, who requested the report last year.

The number of those complaining is a tiny fraction of the more than 17,900 workers who have received special visas since 2000 to work for foreign diplomats. But the report’s authors, and Mr. Durbin, warned that allegations of abuse are probably more widespread.

“I believe the report just scratched the surface,â€

Living in DC years ago, you might as well pull over your car and park if there was someone with dip license plates driving on the same road. Any sort of road rules were lost on these guys or certainly didn't apply to them. I am not surprised at anything these guys are capable of.