Vince Cable, secretary of state for business, told the Liberal Democrat party conference last month ‘What I will not do is provide cover for ideological descendants of those who sent children up chimneys.’  But as secretary of state, he is responsible for the actions of the UK at the International Labour Organisation where our country’s representatives refused to back a measure which would have protected people who face exploitation of a type comparable to Victorian child labour. 

It is hard to believe that there are people in Britain today who are effectively enslaved. Some, like the 24 men and boys from Britain and eastern Europe, who were in the words of a local Crown Prosecutor ‘held against their will and forced to live and work like slaves,’ are put to work in relatively public places, for example laying drives, but others are hidden behind closed doors in private homes.

Vince Cable had an opportunity to protect these domestic workers and he failed. The International Labour Organisation Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers in June 2011 was supported by 173 governments around the world, but Britain, with Sudan, Panama, El Salvador, Malaysia, Singapore, the Czech Republic and Thailand abstained.  Every other country except Swaziland supported the Convention.  None of these countries have the proud human rights record that Britain does; Britain thus undermined international attempts to set minimum labour standards, and with it, the progress the UK has recently made on combating trafficking and modern slavery.

The lack of those standards in practice mean that in Britain today, over 200 years after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, a significant number of people who work inside other people’s homes in this country are treated like slaves.  Their employers do not pay them properly, if at all, some have nowhere else to sleep but on the kitchen floor, many work all hours and in the most extreme cases may also be beaten or sexually exploited.  A recently published survey found that 67 per cent of domestic workers who responded had been denied time off, 54 per cent had suffered psychological abuse, 18 per cent physical abuse and nearly half worked 16 hour days or more. 

They stay because they are migrants and often no one has told them about the rights they theoretically have to a minimum wage, rest days etc. Many have been victims of trafficking:  In the two years before March 2011 895 cases of trafficked workers were reported to the authorities, many of whom were domestic workers, and many more went unreported.

The limited current safeguards against exploitation of domestic workers are threatened by government plans to scrap the Overseas Domestic Worker visa, praised by the ILO, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants and the Home Affairs select committee of the House of Commons  for helping to reduce domestic slavery.

This government, and particularly its Liberal Democrat members, are frequently guilty of condemning in words what it condones by its actions.  Liberal opinion needs to be alert to how cruelly Ministers have failed vulnerable domestic workers. But exploitation will never be ended by government action alone. Our report Service not servitude published today shows how almost anyone can play a part.  Businesses, from employment agencies to plumbers and TV installers, can train staff that enter private households to recognise and report abuse. Community institutions from schools to places of worship where migrant domestic workers frequent can do the same.  Potential employers from users of MumsNet to diplomats should be advised of all the rights of people who work in the home while visa applicants should be told their rights. Trade unions should be encouraged to recruit domestic workers. Finally, the government should extend protections, such as health and safety rights, to people working in private households.

Tackling modern day slavery should be the property of neither left nor right. There is an alternative but only by acting together as a society can we honour Britain’s fight against slavery in the past and end domestic servitude and the exploitation of vulnerable workers in the present. We don’t need to look back to Victorian chimneys to find extreme exploitation. It is here today and we should stop it.

—————————————————————————————

Fiona Mactaggart is MP for Slough and a former Home Office minister

—————————————————————————————

Photo: Meneer De Braker (Akbar2)