{"id":15877,"date":"2014-09-03T09:45:22","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T16:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=15877"},"modified":"2017-06-07T06:09:34","modified_gmt":"2017-06-07T13:09:34","slug":"mary-houngas-victory-is-a-victory-for-all-women-workers-everywhere","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/?p=15877","title":{"rendered":"MH\u2019s victory is a victory for all women workers everywhere"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"UK Supreme Court Judgment 30th July 2014 - Part 1\" width=\"610\" height=\"343\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Nx6TZ8V1Lt8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>At the end of July, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom handed down its judgment in the case of <em><a href=\"http:\/\/supremecourt.uk\/decided-cases\/docs\/UKSC_2012_0188_Judgment.pdf\">H (Appellant) v Allen and another (Respondents)<\/a><\/em>, In their unanimous decision, the Court decided to protect and strengthen the rights of women workers, and in particular of migrant and immigrant women workers, irrespective of legal status. It\u2019s a great decision and an important victory for women everywhere.<\/p>\n<p>Lord Nicholas Wilson, Justice of the Supreme Court, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Nx6TZ8V1Lt8\">explained the case and the Court decision as follows<\/a>. On 28 January 2007, \u201cMrs. Allen\u201d brought \u201cMiss H\u201d, aged around 14, into the United Kingdom on a visitor\u2019s visa. Miss H is described as illiterate. She had lived with Mrs. Allen\u2019s brother in Lagos. Miss H was brought into the United Kingdom under two false claims. First, her age was listed as 20. Second, she was claimed as the granddaughter of Mrs. Allen\u2019s mother. Miss H was \u201caware\u201d of the false pretense. She knew that she could only stay for six months and that she could not legally work for pay.<\/p>\n<p>Miss H, illiterate and 14 years old, \u201centered into a contract\u201d with Mrs. Allen to help with Mrs. Allen\u2019s children. Miss H never received any pay, nor was she ever allowed to attend school. Further, Mrs. Allen verbally, emotionally, and physically abused Miss H, and repeatedly threatened her with prison, explaining that since she was \u201cillegal\u201d, if she were caught on the streets, she would go to jail. Miss H lived under these conditions for a year.<\/p>\n<p>On 17 July 2008, Mrs. Allen pushed Miss H out of the house, locked the door, and that was that. Miss H was found by someone, who took her to Social Services.<\/p>\n<p>Miss H sued Mrs. Allen for discrimination, since she was brutally mistreated because of her Nigerian nationality and her unlawful immigration status. The Employment Tribunal agreed with Miss H and demanded that Mrs. Allen pay compensation. Mrs. Allen appealed the case, claiming \u201cthe defense of illegality.\u201d That is, Mrs. Allen claimed that since Miss H was working illegally, she could not sue. The Court of Appeals agreed with Mrs. Allen.<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court unanimously reinstated the Employment Tribunal\u2019s decision. For two of the Justices, \u201cthe defense of illegality\u201d did not hold, and so that alone sufficed to throw the appeal out. For the remaining three, the more compelling argument was that Miss H had been trafficked. They argued that the public policy of maintaining the integrity of the legal process was secondary to the public policy of opposing trafficking and protecting the rights, if not the well being, of vulnerable people. To accept Mrs. Allen\u2019s claim of \u201cdefense of illegality\u201d and to refuse Miss H\u2019s appeal would be, in the words of Justice Wilson, \u201can affront.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/law\/2014\/jul\/30\/human-trafficking-campaigners-supreme-court-ruling-compensation\">Anti-trafficking activists<\/a> and others have hailed this decision as an important step forward. The immigration status of a worker has no bearing on the labor rights of that worker, including the right to sue the employer in court. In the United States, women understand that <a href=\"http:\/\/whycourtsmatter.org\/issues\/womens-rights\/\">courts matter<\/a>. In South Africa, women understand as well that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailymaverick.co.za\/article\/2014-06-06-analysis-judging-the-judges\/#.VAc6lUt26AY\">judges matter<\/a>. And in this decision, in the United Kingdom, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/news\/uknews\/immigration\/11000929\/Illegal-immigrant-Mary-Hounga-can-claim-discrimination-says-landmark-Supreme-Court-ruling.html\">MH<\/a>, who as a child labored in virtual slavery in someone\u2019s house, has demonstrated that courts matter, judges matter, justice matters, women and girls matter. All women. All girls. Always.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>(Video Credit: UK Supreme Court \/ YouTube)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the end of July, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom handed down its judgment in the case of H (Appellant) v Allen and another (Respondents), In their unanimous decision, the Court decided to protect and strengthen the rights of women workers, and in particular of migrant and immigrant women workers, irrespective of legal [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1089,114,62,556,1006,214,5085,110],"class_list":["post-15877","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-child-domestic-workers","tag-dan-moshenberg","tag-domestic-workers","tag-haunts","tag-immigrant-women","tag-united-kingdom","tag-women","tag-women-workers","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15877"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15877\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21329,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15877\/revisions\/21329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.womeninandbeyond.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}