Two World Bank employees stand accused of holding their au pair in modern slavery according to a lawsuit filed in Alexandria, VA. The Independent reports the Saudi couple withheld their Indonesian au pair’s wages, denied her proper nourishment and threatened her family back home if she tried to leave.
Intimidated on a “regular basis”
The court filings only identify her as “Jane Doe,” an Indonesian woman who traveled to the US in the service of World Bank operations officer Samah Badawi and data visualization specialist Mohammed Manar El-Iriqsousi. According to the filing, Doe realized almost as soon as the plane landed that the job terms she had agreed to and the ones she was working under were very different.
In addition, the suit claims the couple:
“…intimidated [Doe] on a regular basis to hold her in forced labor and prevent her from departing their employ” telling her they “knew where her family lived” in Indonesia.
Doe said the 35-hour work week agreed to turned into nearly 100 hours, with no days off. The couple also used isolation tactics like refusing to allow [Doe] to leave the residence without permission. They also told her they would have her deported if she told anyone about the horrific conditions she was enduring.
The suit states:
“On the rare occasions when [Doe] had any contact with other people, [Badawi and El-Iriqsousi] would interrogate her about any communications she had with them,”
No money and no way to flee
The employment agreement Doe signed said she would be paid $11 an hour for a 35-hour work week lasting from Monday to Friday with an overtime rate of $14.25 an hour, states the lawsuit. But over the entire year she worked in the house, Doe never directly received any of the money she earned, except for “a few hundred dollars in cash,” leaving her without any way to purchase a ticket home.
When Doe told the couple she wanted to go back to Indonesia, according to the suit, the pair said:
“they had just spent money for her to travel the U.S. and that she must work off that cost before she could leave.”
Isolated and with no money, Doe said she had no way to flee until she was finally allowed to attend an event at the Indonesian Embassy. There she met other Indonesians living nearby who, when they learned of Doe’s condition, advised her to ask the US State Department for help. This began the chain of events that led to Doe going to a meeting at the Office of Protocol with a bag containing her “essential belongings,” according to the lawsuit. During this visit Doe told State Department officials the truth about the debt bondage and modern slavery conditions she had been living under.
Through the lawsuit, Doe is seeking compensatory damages and punitive damages, as well as triple her unpaid wages, plus interest, in addition to attorneys’ fees. Freedom United stands in solidarity with workers exploited through modern slavery in demanding compensation and back wages for their labor.
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