I think this is what some of the outrage stems from. Another country’s representative is not the same as anybody else. International relations don’t work like that. The US for instance, has literally gotten a spy, not even a diplomat, off for murder. Anyone remember Raymond Davis? (bold mine)
ETA - I once again apologise for the multiple replies. Multi quote functionality is broken at my end
This article goes into the conflict between US and India’s authorities. Jurisdiction being the point of contention. It’s quite a mess to say the least.
One of the earliest issues was the employee’s desire to work a 2nd job. The situation deteriorates from there.
This is the Article published in India
In the citations you provided, it said that the Department of State has interpreted it to mean a felony, not that it should be interpreted to mean a felony. Could you clarify this for me? Could it be that a when money laundering was the felony that was considered a grave crime it was upheld but when visa fraud is the felony that is considered a grave crime it may be challenged?
The prosecution has put out a detailed statement about the complaint. Some more details are summarized here:
It costs money to eat. It costs money to travel around New York City. It costs money to buy clothes. How complicated is this suppose to be?
I think this was made clear earlier, but now you can see the prosecution saying it directly.
Room and board includes the cost of eating. And someone coming from India to NYC brings clothes with them. When you live where you work, the travel you have to do ain’t much. It’s not complicated really.
You’re probably correct that her costs were minimal if she never went anywhere, didn’t buy anything, and ate all her food where she worked. Remember how you were saying this was nothing like indentured servitude? I think you’re debunking your argument.
Thats basically a bunch of stupid Indians fighting among themselves since pakistani are same looking people who speak same language and have almost same culture and who used to be part of Indian till 1947.
Too few for a country of 1.2 billion.
they suck at that too. Just tht they are relatively better in cricket than they are in other sports.
I see you havent listed indian songs/movies. Check out this thread if you care.
Absolutely not. Thats just a response that is warranted to most of the posts in this thread. I am all for giving AMericans the time that they need to understand the issue.
So because all her food was provided for, so she doesn’t have to incur costs to eat, and because she’s provided accommodation where she worked, so she doesn’t have to incur costs to travel or live, she becomes an indentured labourer? Are you trying to make yourself sound absurd? And on top of that she’s still making much more money than she would at home, which she can in effect save all of, and use, as a news report suggests she wanted to when her husband approached the consul officer for the job, for her children’s education. Instead, a few months into the job that she solicited, she’s gone missing (at this stage why not just go home if she was unhappy with her working conditions?) found herself a lawyer who wants her released from the conditions of her visa, come up with a damages claim and found a visa statute which provides for her family to come join her. More power to her, but it is not at all clear to me that she was brutally or otherwise being exploited in any of this.
Good post again.
And the Indian Consul-general is arrested, handcuffed in public, stripped and cavity searched.
I agree. I think they will give her immunity.
Of course she should have been paying minimum wage and shouldn’t have lied on her visa.
But come on - some people here are living in blissful ignorance. There are probably hundreds of thousands of Americans right now in other countries for “pleasure” that are damn well working there in violation of that countries visa laws.
That doesn’t excuse the minimum wage thing, but we have actual spies working illegally in other countries. Sometimes with diplomatic cover - most often without.
When one country bitches and moans and makes a request of another - it would behoove us to play along. We are going to need a favor some day. If that means someone gets away with a crime - so what.
Give India what they want. Make sure there is some behind the scene agreement to treat the workers right under US law - and move on. Indians in general are pretty friendly towards Americans. Hell I felt I was treated better as an American in India that actual Indians. We need friends like that.
She becomes an indentured laborer because she can’t afford to go anywhere except work or buy anything for herself. See how that works?
What wage do you think she expected at that time? I’m guessing it wasn’t the lower-than-legally-permitted one.
Why not go home? Because the Indian government wanted her arrested for complaining about the way their diplomat was treating her.
The prosecution says she was not handcuffed in public, and was treated pretty respectfully (instead of taking her phone, they let her make calls to her bosses and arrange child care).
Read more here
She says she was “repeatedly handcuffed.” You said she was “handcuffed in public.” She doesn’t say she was handcuffed in public, and the prosecutor says she was not handcuffed in public.
Does anyone think it’s a little harder to accept the morality of this arrangement if Khobagrade, as alleged, did this?
That sounds a little bit less like a cultural difference or a misinterpretation of an agreement where, hey, at least she got room and board! If Richards was benefiting from this agreement, why take out legal language that protected her?
And the prosecutor says she wasn’t. Given the choice, I’ll take the word of the prosecutor over “reported,” since at least that’s a solid source and the Indian papers cited here are strongly predisposed toward rumor and innuendo and I am not sure they even reflect the statements the prosecution has made.
By the way, if people are offended that Khobragade was not treated like the special person she is, I think it’s worth pointing out that compared to any random black or Latino teenager or person of color shopping at a pricey department store, she was treated like royalty!
Apparently the right wing BJP party is getting into it, with demands that Indian laws against homosexuality be applied to American embassy staff.
That would just make America look worse.
You’re coming dangerously close to breaking our main rule here (which is “Don’t be a jerk”)…so dial back the tone and style of post you’re making here (which seems to be insulting entire countries for the heck of it).
There is more to life than just surviving. She has the same right as you and me to go to a movie, get her hair done, sit in a coffee shop, take a bus down to the Jersey shore on the weekend, and buy a computer to post on the SDMB. I wouldn’t settle for less than that, so why should she? Because she’s “just a servant”, and should know her place?
Why not? Because the woman in question couldn’t afford it? Do you know what America women who can’t afford live-in domestic help do? They make do without it.
While I understand what you’re saying about the maid being better off in the US even at what, for the US, are criminally low wages that’s not going to hold up under the US legal system.
Yes the US Federal government now views those marriages as legal due to a recent Supreme Court case, United States vs. Windsor. I’m not sure, exactly, what you mean by “international transactions” in this context, but if you’re dealing with marriage in the US you’re dealing with state laws, not Federal.
It comes down to choice - if she is paid so little she is unable to eat out, travel, purchase clothing, etc. then effectively she has no choice at all. Prisoners are provided food, accommodation, clothing, etc, too. Prisoners can even hold jobs, which often pay less than minimum wage, justified much the way you justified the low wages for this maid, because they have food, clothing, and shelter provided. Which is not to say that she was a prisoner, but you’re justifying this because she was given what prisoners are granted. Bravo.
I have to wonder if her employer also took away her passport, which seems common enough in exploitation situations. If so, I’d say yes, there was definitely something amiss because an employer never has a reason to hold an employee’s ID. Request to see it at hiring, yes, or make a copy for records, but never take it away from an employee. That would be a clear sign of attempted control and coercion.
Why does exploitation have to be “brutal” to count? Seems to me the maid discovered she was being paid less than the legal minimum and also discovered she had legal recourse.
Earlier this year I had an employer who failed to pay me my wages. I took her to court in November and was awarded seven times the amount of the wages by the judge. Failure to pay legally owed wages is seen as damaging, yes, the courts do award damages in such cases. In the state where I live damages in such cases start at three times the amount of wages owed and (obviously) can go up from there. New York law probably differs in the details but is no doubt similar.
And, as far as I’m concerned, I see nothing wrong with the maid looking into changing her visa if that’s what she desires and if she stays within the law to do so. It doesn’t sound to me like the maid “went missing”, it sounds like she voluntarily left her employer, which people are allowed to do in the US. Even if she signed a contract agreeing to the low wages such wages are not legal in the US and thus the contract would not be enforceable.
Broomstick and others are being incredibly naive, I am afraid. Even with the best of intentions.
Yes, the laws and more importantly the application thereof are different for the lady in question than they are for us. She is a person who is acting in a diplomatic position. Its not ideal, and is open to abuse, but that is the way it is.
At the end of the day, the bigger picture needs to be seen. Do you want, India to retaliate (more than they have already) against US diplomats? Start prosecuting US diplomats for infractions that they have up till now ignored? We have had one same sex spouse of a US diplomat in India post here already. International relations would suffer immeasurably if diplomats were able to be targeted by countries, and cases like this this is just the price you pay for this.
A point I think that has not been considered. It is most likely that the “Diplomat” never had any idea of how much she was paying the woman in question. I doubt that the paperwork was even made or filed by her and very very likely that the woman’s pay was paid by the Indian mission rather than the woman herself. I do know that the UK Foreign office used to give their diplomats and allowance for valets and such and since this is a woman brought over from India rather than a local, I suspect that this is infact the case here.
Which would mean that this is a tussle over diplomatic privileges and the lady is just a pawn. I do know that diplomats in London for instance have often refused to pay the congestion charge under orders…even though individually they might have been willing to.