Migrant domestic workers are often employed as housekeepers, nannies, and other personal servants in private households. In a number of documented cases, employers have trafficked domestic workers into a foreign country with false promises of favourable employment conditions and then held them in servitude working under exploitative conditions.
Victims are often forced to work long hours with no days off, live in poor accommodation, and are deprived of liberty, forced to cut off contact with family and friends. Some are physically or sexually abused. Employers commonly control their domestic workers through physical restraint or the confiscation of their passports, restricting their mobility and placing them in a state of vulnerability and dependence.
Because of the informal and private environments in which they work, victims of domestic servitude can be difficult to identify. Minimal protection under employment legislation, coupled with language and cultural barriers, make it very difficult for exploited individuals to access legal help.
Also known as involuntary servitude, forced labour is any work or services which people are forced to do against their will under the threat of some form punishment. These workers are made more vulnerable to forced labor practices because of high rates of unemployment, poverty, crime, discrimination, corruption, political conflict, and cultural acceptance of the practice. Female victims of forced or bonded labor, especially women and girls in domestic servitude, may also face sexual exploitation as well.
Forced labour is a form of human trafficking that is often harder to identify and estimate than sex trafficking because of its hidden nature (i.e., the work may occur in a closed location such as a factory or household). The ILO has suggested six elements which, either individually or together, can indicate forced labour:
- Threats or actual physical harm;
- Restriction of movement and confinement to the workplace or to a limited area;
- Debt-bondage;
- Withholding of wages or excessive wage reductions, that violate previously made agreements;
- Retention of passports and identity documents (the workers can neither leave nor prove their identity and status);
- Threat of denunciation to the authorities where the worker is of illegal status.
Forced labour is most frequently found in labour intensive and/or under-regulated industries, such as:
- Agriculture
- Domestic work
- Construction, mining, quarrying and brick kilns
- Manufacturing, processing and packaging
- Prostitution and sexual exploitation
These industries tend to be characterised by ‘3D’ work – dangerous, difficult and dirty – and are often similar in their nature. They typically involve low pay and low skill levels.
