HUMAN RIGHTS FOR WHO?
BY JULIANNE MALVEAUX
While the United States does a great job at spewing human rights
rhetoric, we
do a lousy job of providing human rights at home, especially to some
immigrant workers who work in the homes of international visitors. So says
Human Rights Watch, whose report, Hidden in the Home: Abuse of Domestic
Workers with Special Visas in the United States was issued this month. The
report includes harrowing accounts from domestic workers about ways which
they were virtually enslaved, their passports confiscated, their mobility
restricted, their rights violated.
As many as 30,000 of these workers reside in the United States under
special visas. They are almost always women, and they tend to work for
diplomats, World Bank employees, or employees of other international
agencies. Many come to the United States because they think it offers better
opportunities for them than at home. Plus, they are supposed to be protected
by signed contracts that require their employers to pay the minimum wage, and
to obey the wage and hour laws that exist in the United States.
Instead, these women find themselves working as many as 18 hours a day
for as little as two dollars an hour. They find employers who were pleasant
enough in their home country suddenly altering their rate of pay. They find
some of the terms of their contracts, such as required health insurance, or
overtime, violated. And often, they find themselves intimidated and
seemingly without recourse when their rights are violated.
Human Rights Watch says these workers “simply fall through the cracks of US
government bureaucracy,” with different government agencies responsible for
making sure their contracts are enforced. Further, once they leave the
employment situation that was responsible for obtaining their visa, they risk
losing legal immigration status. If the employer is the sole source of
financial support, survival is an issue (Now, there’s a thought for
television producers. Drop a dozen Americans in foreign countries employed
as domestics and see how long they make it). Those with special visas don’t
qualify for federal public benefits. They are simply stuck.
Anita Ortega worked for a Guatemalan official of the Organization of
American States for more than two years. Typically her day began at 6:30 in
the morning, and ended at 8:30 at night during the week, from 8 in the
morning until 9:30 at night on Saturday. When the family entertained, about
once a month, Anita worked until 1 or 2 in the morning. Sunday was her day
off, but she had to prepare Sunday’s meals before she could take time off.
She never had a key to the family home and could not go out alone, even on
her day off. She was paid $300 a month plus room and board.
Anita was promised periodic raises, when she asked for one, she was told
her visa could be canceled. She was promised health insurance and access to
medical care, but she never got it. She endured sexual harassment and was
raped by a friend of her employer’s family. She never sought help or filed a
lawsuit because the $300 a month she earned helped her family in Guatemala.
She also says she was unaware of her rights.
If her case were isolated, it would still be egregious. But this case is
typical of the fifty or more cases that the Human Rights Watch examined.
Women were beaten and slapped, their food intake monitored. They were
physically and psychologically abused. And their employers were protected
because so many women were ignorant of the law.
Some international agencies require their employees to provided their
domestic workers with a contract, minimum wage pay, and health insurance.
Some monitor and enforce these contracts and act as a clearinghouse to
resolve worker complaints. But many either ignore the law or treat it as a
private matter between employer and employee. The result is that even when
intentions are good, domestic workers are nearly powerless, rendered
vulnerable because their employment status is their ticket to stay in the
United States.
Human Rights Watch says that Congress should allow migrant domestic
workers to get temporary visas while they work out their legal problems with
former employers, and be allowed to transfer their visas from one employment
situation to another. They also suggest that US labor and employment laws be
applied to live-in domestic workers. And they say that employment
requirements for migrant domestic workers should be binding and enforced by
the Department of Labor.
That’s the least that Congress can do. We talk a good game about human
rights, but the domestic workers who come to this country haven’t a glimpse
of those rights as long as their employers are allowed to abuse them.