Here's an excellent piece on the recent Domestic Worker Rights issues involving foreign diplomats. It is great to see the workers plight being exposed so our industry can come out of the darkness on an international level.
The recent arrest of Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade has unleashed two kinds of outrage: protests by Indians upset over her treatment by New York police, and, mostly outside of India, anger over Khobragade’s alleged crime of forcing a domestic employee to work long hours for a fraction of the prevailing wage after having pledged in a visa application to follow U.S. labor and wage laws.
Less attention has been paid, however, to a more insidious problem: how international diplomatic practice, and U.S. immigration law, enable the abuse of domestic workers.
Many diplomats, whether foreign or U.S., consider it a right to employ domestic help while on assignment overseas, bringing servants with them as part of their household. U.S. law has two specific visa categories to allow this: one for representatives of foreign governments and another for those working for international organizations. For the 2012 fiscal year, U.S. consular officers issued visas to 1,871 domestic employees accompanying foreign diplomats on assignment to the U.S. Many other countries have similar provisions.
via U.S. Visa Law Fuels Domestic-Employee Abuse – Bloomberg.