More than a few people would have been stunned when they heard about four members of Britain's wealthiest family, the Hindujas, being convicted in a Swiss criminal court last Friday of exploiting domestic staff brought over from India to work at their Geneva villa.
During the trial, the four were accused of paying workers about a tenth of their entitlement under Swiss law, confiscating their passports and making them work 18-hour shifts with no days off. Lead prosecutor Yves Bertossa accused the Hindujas of spending “more on their dog than on their domestic employees”.
India-born Prakash Hinduja and his wife Kamal, both in their 70s, were each sentenced to four-and-a-half years in prison. Their son Ajay and his wife Namrata received four-year terms. The family’s business manager Najib Ziazi received an 18-month suspended sentence. The Swiss court has told the Hindujas to pay their erstwhile staff the equivalent of $950,000 in compensation.
Whether any of the above see jail time is another matter but the case highlights the long-running issue of how some employers mistreat their domestic workers. It is not just wealthy tycoons who can behave in this way, nor is the issue confined to a single nationality or country.
The three Indian workers at the heart of the case alleged that the four Hindujas paid them as little as £7 ($8) a month. Allegations made in court included claims that staff were paid only once every few months in Indian rupees instead of Swiss francs, which were sent to their Indian bank accounts, out of the workers’ reach. There were also claims that the workers were forced to sleep in windowless basements. The Hindujas have filed an appeal against the verdict in a higher court.
Such a judgement in favour of domestic workers is not commonly heard of in India – although this does not imply that mistreatment of staff occurs only in India or South Asia. The case of a Filipina worker’s body found last year in Kuwait, as reported in The National, is another example of the exploitation and, in a number of cases, even brutality, that occur in far too many societies. It is, however, rare for us to read about such cases for a variety of reasons, including victims’ inability to report abuse.
Given the sheer numbers of domestic workers across the world, such cases should be worrying. According to the India’s National Sample Survey Organisation, the country has about four million domestic workers and nearly two thirds of them are women. The International Labour Organisation says there are about 75 million domestic workers worldwide. How most are treated is anyone’s guess.
This very public verdict has resonated on social media, with some people welcoming it or at least suggesting that the result serves the family right. It should go without saying that people ought to know how to treat employees, pay them fairly and accord basic dignity to those cooking in their kitchens, sweeping their floors and keeping their homes clean.
When confronted by the unpleasant details of this case, it is reassuring to bear in mind that even in millions of Indian households, plenty of people make sure their domestic staff are treated, if not like family, then at least fairly and addressed by children with a “didi” (sister) or “aunty” suffixed to their name, so that youngsters grow up learning how to show respect to their elders, regardless of their occupation or social status.
Unfortunately, there are too many residential community WhatsApp groups in which members unashamedly end up "othering" their domestic help, perpetuating caste prejudices and their own notions of class superiority. Repeated reports of white-collar employers flying into a rage at a domestic worker's request for a raise or a day off are only the less-ugly stories in circulation.
Broadly speaking, Indians are not used to hearing about the law catching up with the ultra-wealthy for something as common as mistreating the domestic staff. Many don't flinch at the term "servants" – casual references to "these people" or nastier insults like "they sit on your head" are heard too often in many middle-class circles. To them, the very public stories of exploitation of maids and cooks often elicit no more than a shrug.
Exploitation is a big deal though – it is just often not made a big deal of by those who are responsible for it. In 2014, Devyani Khobragade, an Indian diplomat in Washington was, compared to the Hindujas’ verdict, let off relatively lightly. She was able to leave the US despite facing charges of fraud and of underpaying her maid.
It is the Hindujas’ domestic employees, the workers who called on the Swiss law for help, for whom we could spare a thought. They displayed great resourcefulness and wherewithal to fight a fight in which they were at a disadvantage. Despite the obstacles – of a language barrier, of being powerless and being stuck in a foreign country – they managed to file a case and successfully protest against injustice.
Some reports, however, got the wrong end of the stick, focusing on the fact that the four members of this illustrious family were cleared of human trafficking. Indeed, they have been. But the jail sentences for exploitation might be enough to highlight the need for action against such behaviour, particularly if the verdict is upheld in the higher court.
Either way, looked at from any angle there are lessons to be learnt. Perhaps it is too much to hope that those the world over who employ the services of domestic staff will realise basic operating rules: that it is not acceptable to mistreat and underpay people. As well as being illegal, the consequences are many – perhaps the most damning of which is to turn perpetrators’ reputations to dust. But if that is what it takes to inspire deeper introspection from the great global middle class, then this case has set a vital – if uneasy – precedent.
