Thaindian News

London, Aug 30 (ANI): Foreign diplomats are taking undue advantage of their immunity to keep domestic help as slaves in Britain, an investigation has revealed.

The workers, mostly African and Asian, are forced to work for up to 20 hours a day for as little as 10p an hour.

They are kept under house arrest, made to sleep on the floor and their passports are snatched so they can’t escape the country.

“Some of the experiences of victims are literally being chained to the kitchen sink, working 20 hours a day, 7 days a week for little or no pay,” the Telegraph quoted Detective Chief Superintendent Richard Martin as saying.

“We’ve had people who were only allowed to eat the scraps off the kitchen table once the children were finished, so they weren’t even fed properly. And around all that you have people being assaulted and abused by the families they are in. We’ve had women who are being raped,” he added.

“We’ve had cases of people being burned with irons by their employers, being threatened with knives, having boiling water thrown at them,” revealed a spokesperson for Kalayaan, a charity based in west London, helps around 350 migrant workers who have been forced into slavery each year.

“And two thirds of domestic workers report that they have been psychologically abused, which means they have been threatened, they’ve been humiliated, they’ve been shouted at constantly. Called dog, donkey, stupid, and illiterate. Being constantly criticised and humiliated is deeply traumatising for people,” the spokesperson added.

But it’s not just the diplomats, even wealthy foreign families and some British citizens are keeping workers in slavery, the investigation for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme found. (ANI)