News - World: Domestic workers are being held as modern slaves in diplomatic households across London, where they are forced to work up to 18 hours a day, wash themselves with buckets of cold water and eat leftover food scraps from their employers, the Telegraph can reveal.

The workers, largely women from the Philippines and Indonesia, are hired by foreign diplomats via international recruitment agencies and provided with visas to live and work in the UK.

Over the past five years, London-based diplomats representing several Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian countries have subjected their domestic workers to inhumane living conditions and degrading labour abuses, according to data reviewed by the Telegraph. 

These cases are “likely to be the tip of the iceberg,” experts warn.

Last year, the Supreme Court ruled that diplomats who exploit workers in conditions of modern slavery cannot rely on diplomatic immunity to prevent compensation claims.

The ruling was specific to a single case of a London-based Saudi diplomat, who was accused of treating a Filipino staff member as a slave, forcing her to wear a bell 24 hours a day to be at his “family’s beck and call”.

Data shared by the charity with the Telegraph showed that, between 2017 and 2021, at least 13 overseas domestic workers were abused by 10 diplomatic agents from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, Brunei and the Philippines.

These workers were later entered into the National Referral Mechanism (NRM), a national framework run by the Home Office for identifying and supporting victims of modern slavery.

Former Cabinet minister David Davis said representatives from the Middle East shouldn’t be allowed to recreate the “oppressive conditions” of their own countries within diplomatic households in the UK, adding: “These individuals should be obeying British laws.”

Diwa, a mother of one and former worker who was brought into Britain in 2018 by a Saudi Arabian diplomat, described to the Telegraph how she lived as a prisoner in a house in West London.

She spent three months in his employment but was never paid and would “only eat leftovers from the family,” adding: “I couldn’t eat if they weren’t in.”

Diwa was unable to go out by herself and had her passport confiscated by the diplomat upon her arrival into the UK. She would divide her time between the official’s house and a property owned by his relative. On some occasions, she was expected to clean both homes on the same day.

Every year, up to 17,000 vulnerable domestic workers, many from Asia and Africa, travel to the UK with their employers, according to a government-commissioned review into the exploitation of migrant staff, published in 2015.

However, not all leave the UK once their work permit runs out. In the year ending March 2020, some 15,828 visas expired for overseas domestic workers, government data show. But in nearly 10 per cent of cases (1,280), the Home Office was unable to establish if these workers went on to depart the country.

“I don't think the government is taking this issue seriously … They want these wealthy families coming into the UK for political reasons and economic reasons,” he said, adding that the majority of individuals bringing over their own staff came from the Middle East.

A Government spokesperson said: “The Government does not tolerate diplomats breaking the law and takes allegations of staff mistreatment in diplomatic households very seriously.

“Where there are serious alleged offences committed by diplomats, we ask the relevant government to waive their diplomatic immunity to allow them to cooperate with independent police investigations. For the most serious offences we can also request their immediate withdrawal from the UK.”