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Convention on Domestic Workers

Signing the convention would make a difference in three ways. The first is the signal it would send to traffickers, who will otherwise believe, no doubt, that the UK is joining their infamous gang and saying that this country is open to human trafficking. We know how extensive human trafficking is in the UK and that it is more profitable than drug dealing. It is the most profitable activity for organised crime, although the field of human trafficking is unorganised as well as organised, because people as well as agencies supply domestic workers. Moreover, individual families bring domestic workers with them. It is, therefore, important that Britain sends out a signal that we are closed to that kind of abuse. Secondly, the victims themselves would also get a signal. People who work with victims of trafficking have told me that those victims believe that they have no recourse to help and that the clear signal is that they are dependent on their owners/employers, who usually retain their passports. They do not believe that anyone can help them. They are frightened of approaching the police and, frankly, our national referral mechanism is an incompetent way for them to get help. Thirdly, if we were signatories to the convention, the Minister would have to do something about this level of labour exploitation. Our laws apparently say, and we claim at international events, that we have fantastic working hours and protection and so on. However, 67% of the migrant domestic workers who approached Kalayaan said that they did not have any time off, were working seven days a week and worked on call for 24 hours a day, and more than half of them worked for 16 or more hours a day. The Minister may say that the UK's position is that people ought, voluntarily, to be able to work for more than 16 hours a day, but I do not believe that those workers were working voluntarily for more than 16 hours a day when their salary was £50 or less a week. If the Minister were a signatory to the international convention, I think that he would actually have to do something about this level of labour exploitation in people's homes.