In the past, foreign diplomats were given diplomatic immunity, and they used it as a shield to to treat domestic workers unfairly. This article tells of Vishranthamma Swarna, a domestic worker who was forced to work long hours every day, with little pay for four years for such a diplomat…
She escaped and after nearly a decade, her case has gone to US Second Circuit Court of Appeals and it led to the decision that diplomatic immunity is no longer a shield. Martina Vandenberg, founder of The Human Trafficking Pro Bono Legal Center in Washington, explains, “What we play with the diplomats is a waiting game: We wait for them to leave and then we sue them. The risk associated with abusing, raping, holding your domestic worker in forced labor … has increased exponentially. The level of US government scrutiny … has also increased and the consequences at a diplomatic level can be devastating.”
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