By Su-Lin Tan 

Canberra, Australia’s capital, is home to powerful diplomats and government officials, but shocking instances of modern slavery have emerged within its borders.

Sri Lankan domestic worker Priyanka Danaratna was held against her will for three years without a passport in the five-bedroom house of her employer Himalee Arunatilaka, the then-deputy high commissioner of Sri Lanka, just a stone’s throw away from Australia’s parliament. From 2015 to 2018, Arunatilaka paid Danaratna less than 65 Australian cents (44 US cents) an hour, in violation of labour laws, according to an August federal court ruling.

Despite international condemnation, the Sri Lankan government claimed Arunatilaka had not broken any laws. The diplomat did not respond to court proceedings.

The Sri Lankan government implying “that there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong about this arrangement … is kind of mind-blowing from an Australian perspective,” said David Hillard, Danaratna’s lawyer.

The case follows a similar incident in March involving a former Indian high commissioner who paid his domestic worker less than A$ 10 (US$ 6.70) a day for over a year. Both cases highlight abuses of diplomatic immunity from criminal prosecution and the urgent need for stronger enforcement against modern slavery in Australia.

Danaratna, a former cleaner with no English skills, was specifically sought out by Arunatilaka to work in Australia. For three years of work, from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. every day, she was paid A$ 11,212. Her wages were deposited irregularly into a Sri Lankan account and she had only two days off.

“The only contact that I had with other people while I was in Canberra was with three other domestic servants. I spoke with them in Sinhala,” Danaratna said, according to court documents.

The federal court ruled that diplomatic immunity did not apply to Arunatilaka as she had left her post, echoing a 2022 case in Britain where immunity was dismissed against modern slavery claims. The Australian federal court ordered Arunatilaka, who is now an ambassador at the UN, to pay Danaratna nearly A$ 545,000 (US$ 367,000) in unpaid wages and interest.

Hillard told This Week in Asia that the court intends to impose further civil penalties, as it did with the March prosecution of former Indian high commissioner Navdeep Suri Singh.

For underpaying his domestic worker, Seema Shergill, the court ordered Singh to pay A$ 136,000 in unpaid wages and nearly A$ 100,000 in penalties. Shergill described harsh working conditions, including threats and intimidation.

“I was really scared that if I got sent back to India, I would be punished,” she said, according to court documents. “I was scared that they would retaliate against me or my family.”

Shergill fled Singh’s home in 2016, leaving all her belongings behind and sleeping on the streets before being taken in by the Salvation Army.

Federal court judge Elizabeth Raper said Singh had intentionally evaded his legal obligations by using an unlawful scheme to misclassify Shergill’s employment.

Workers like Shergill who find themselves “entrapped within domestic servitude” are often “invisible from Australian society”, Raper said – leading to exploitation and unlawful practices.

Modern slavery

While incidents of modern slavery are fewer in Australia compared to Asia, they still exist in forms such as forced marriages and labour exploitation. The Australian Federal Police have reported 531 cases of forced marriage since 2018, with many more likely unreported.

Australia, New Zealand, and Japan rank highest in Perth-based human rights group Walk Free’s Global Slavery Index for the Asia-Pacific region, while India, Sri Lanka, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Myanmar fall in the bottom half.

Research by the social justice organization the Mercy Foundation has highlighted the abuse of domestic workers at Canberra embassies, indicating a persistent risk of modern slavery.

And it doesn’t just happen in Australia’s capital. In 2021, a couple was sentenced to jail for enslaving a Tamil woman in their Melbourne home for eight years. Local media reported the worker having tea and curry thrown at her and being beaten with a frozen chicken. When she collapsed and was taken to hospital, she weighed just 40kg (88lbs).

The recent court cases against diplomats reflected a pattern of “acceptance at a government level, at an official level, that they [the victims] were getting paid what they’d earn if they were back in India or Sri Lanka”, Hillard said.

“I suspect that many countries and their diplomats have just assumed that nobody will notice and no one will care.”

Cultural and religious beliefs can also influence how abuse is normalized among some communities, said Fuzz Kitto, director of NGO Be Slavery Free.

He gave the example of reincarnation and the belief that “in a previous life” the victim must have done something “pretty wrong” to become enslaved.

While Kitto said the Australian government has made efforts to inform domestic workers about their rights, oversight remains insufficient. The federal court criticized the lack of scrutiny in Danaratna’s visa application, which could have prevented her exploitation.

A spokeswoman for Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs told This Week in Asia it regularly communicates the importance of complying with Australian laws to foreign missions, conducts pre-employment briefings and holds annual meetings with workers.

Such cases of modern slavery have the potential to strain diplomatic relations, noted Daniel Flitton from the Lowy Institute think tank in a recent analysis – even as tensions remain low between Australia, Sri Lanka, and India.

Diplomatic immunity should not serve as a blanket excuse for exploitation, Flitton wrote.

“Immunity is intended to protect open communication between countries, not be a catch-all excuse,” he said.

“The easiest answer would be to stop the practice of allowing domestic staff to accompany diplomats. That hasn’t happened.”

-scmp.com