Preventing exploitation of domestic workers in diplomatic households imperative, OSCE anti-trafficking Co-ordinator says in Brussels

The acting OSCE Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, Ruth Freedom Pojman, at a workshop held in Brussels from 12 to 13 March 2014 urged the Organization’s participating States to work jointly to prevent the exploitation of domestic workers by employers who hold diplomatic immunity.

“Preventing trafficking in human beings for domestic servitude in diplomatic households is imperative,” Pojman said. “Therefore the foreign ministries in all OSCE participating State must take measures to prevent any abuse of diplomatic immunities for the purpose of exploiting domestic workers and to take further steps to overcome the obstacle of immunities, to assist victims and give them access to their rights, especially remedies for unpaid wages."

Representatives of protocol departments and other diplomats from Armenia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Denmark, Finland, Georgia, Iceland Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the Russian Federation and the United States took part in the workshop alongside experts from the OSCE, the ILO, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, the Austrian, Belgian, and Swiss Foreign Ministries, and the United States State Department.

The workshop is the fourth, and final, in a series held across the OSCE region to raise awareness and enhance the prevention of trafficking in human beings for domestic servitude in diplomatic households. The initial workshop was held in Geneva in June 2012, followed by a second workshop in Kyiv in June 2013 and a third in The Hague in October 2013.

The Belgian Ministry of Justice, in co-ordination with the Office of the Special Representative, also organized a side event on the Belgian experience in protecting victims of trafficking in diplomatic households.

The Office of the Special Representative and Co-ordinator for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings has taken leadership on this subject, with a view to disseminating good practices and promoting the ratification of ILO Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers that entered into force on 5 September 2013.

It published the first path-breaking study on the topic in 2010, Unprotected Work, Invisible Exploitation: Trafficking for the Purpose of Domestic Servitude, also available in Russian and French.

The event was hosted by the Belgian Foreign Ministry with the support of the Justice Ministry. The project is funded by the Austria, the Netherlands, Switzerland and the United States.