2023-08-29
MANILA - “Immunity & Impunity: How Diplomats Get Away with Exploiting Domestic Workers” is a multi-country, multimedia investigative series that examines how diplomats exploit their foreign domestic workers and escape prosecution because of diplomatic immunity. It also reveals the complicity of sending countries in protecting diplomats implicated in domestic trafficking and exploitation.
Foreign diplomats and employees of international organizations are getting away with exploiting their domestic workers because of their diplomatic immunity status. Under the Vienna Convention, diplomatic immunity protects diplomats and employees of international organizations from being sued, arrested, or detained while in their receiving country.
In addition to field reporting across Europe and the Philippines, the report series will use digital forensics and open-source intelligence techniques to gather open-source data and expose the extent of exploitation of household domestic staff.
AWARD
The project Diplomatic Immunity & Impunity is a regional/local finalist in the Carlos Tejada Award for Excellence in Investigative Reporting category as part of the SOPA Awards 2024. The awards ceremony will take place on 20 June 2024. The series exposes how erring diplomats have been able to exploit their migrant domestic workers and have gotten away with it for decades due to a privilege called diplomatic immunity.
Photo credit: Nicolas Dupraz/Al Jazeera
Mentor
Supported
€10.200 allocated on 03/10/2022ID
MSU/2022/047Grant
ONLINE
- Four Filipinas sue diplomat employers in Switzerland for slavery, Al Jazeera English, 24/05/2023;
- For many abused migrant domestic workers, the only way out is to flee, Rappler, 29/08/2023;
- How diplomats who traffick, exploit domestic workers get away, Rappler, 30/08/2023;
- EXPLAINER: What is diplomatic immunity and what does it have to do with migrant domestic work?, Rappler, 30/08/2023;
- When diplomats are traffickers, migrant domestic workers are enslaved, Rappler, 31/08/2023;
- At home, and still no justice for migrant domestic workers, Rappler, 01/09/2023;
- Report shows abuse of domestic workers by diplomats, Deutsche Welle, 19/09/2023;
- ‘Cheaplomats’: The extent envoys go to avoid paying their domestic workers, Rappler, 11/10/2023;
- UK: Survey of 200 migrant domestic workers reveals extent of employer abuse, InfoMigrants, 09/02/2024.
VIDEO
- WATCH: How diplomats use diplomatic immunity to get away with domestic worker exploitation, Rappler, 06/09/2023;
- Paano nakatatakas ang mga diplomat na nang-aabuso ng kanilang kasambahay?, Rappler, 25/09/2023.
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