By Charmaine Y. Rodriguez
Landmark decision involves diplomat’s country in trafficking case
The high court of the United Kingdom ordered the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to pay more than £260,000 to a Filipino domestic worker who was exploited by one of the latter’s diplomats stationed in London.
Salem Mohammed Sultan Aljaberi, who was a UAE diplomat living in London in 2013, was found guilty of human trafficking and exploitation of a 35-year-old Filipino domestic helper.
The victim worked for Aljaberi’s family in the UAE in 2012.
In 2013, they took her to London where she was locked in their home for 89 days before escaping and reporting the abuse to authorities.
Lawyers representing the woman said it was unprecedented for a court to order a foreign state to pay for domestic servitude by a diplomat on UK soil, The Guardian reported when the decision came out last January 22, 2026.
Justice Nicholas Lavender described it as a “case of modern slavery” and said that part of the damages he was awarding were “exemplary” damages, which are punitive rather than compensatory.
He said: “I accept that such an award is appropriate in a case in which Mr. Aljaberi acted with a cynical disregard for the claimant’s rights and exploited the claimant for his own financial advantage,” the report added.
Post-traumatic stress disorder
The victim received a total of £262,292.76 in damages for false imprisonment, injury to feelings and personal injury due to a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder as a result the abuse she had to endure.
Once she arrived in London, the family did not permit her to leave the flat alone and when they were away, she was locked in.
The judge calculated that she had worked an average of more than 17 hours a day, caring for the children and providing other domestic services and was not given rest days, lunch breaks or days off. She was also paid just £400 for the 12 weeks, which is way below the minimum wage.
She was also “inadequately” fed and was subjected to “verbal abuse and threats”.
Her passport was taken away from her and she was denied internet access in the flat and was not given a UK sim card.
It was In November 2014 when the Home Office recognised that she was a victim of human trafficking but the proceedings took 12 years.
The UAE government did not attend any of the hearings for the case.
Diplomatic immunity
In 2017, Britain’s Supreme Court also ruled in favor of a Filipino domestic helper who accused her employers of abuse and trafficking.
In the landmark decision, the high court said Jarallah Al-Malki, a Saudi diplomat, no longer had diplomatic immunity in Britain when he finished his posting and left the UK in 2014.
Cherrylyn Reyes went to an employment tribunal in 2011, claiming Al-Malki and his wife, subjected her to racial abuse, had taken her passport, and paid her less than the minimum wage.
Former diplomats are granted limited residual immunity, yet the Supreme Court said this did not apply to Al-Malki as his employment of Reyes fell outside his “official functions”.
Forced labor
A court in New York made a similar decision in the case of Filipino domestic worker Marichu Suarez Baoanan who sued her employers, former Philippine UN Ambassador Lauro Baja Jr., his wife Norma Castro Baja, their daughter Maria Elizabeth and their family-owned business Labaire Travel Agency for labor trafficking, forced labor, and servitude in 2008.
Baoanan, a nursing graduate who was promised a job in the US, worked for the Bajas as a household helper for approximately three months.
She accused them of forcing her to work at least 18 hours a day, seven days a week, with no days off, for merely $100 or approximately 6 cents per hour. Invoking diplomatic immunity, the Bajas asked the court to dismiss the charges.
The court ruled in favor of Baoanan that Lauro was no longer covered by diplomatic immunity after his stint in the UN had ended. However, after three years, the case was settled but details were not provided.