The British government has been ordered to pay nearly $150,000 to two Moroccan women who were underpaid while working at embassies in London.
Fatima Benkharbouche, 57, a cook, and Mina Janah, 54, a nanny, were paid less than the statutory minimum wage but were unable to sue their employers after they claimed diplomatic immunity.
Ms Benkharbouche worked at the Sudanese embassy in London for 7 years while Ms Janah spent a similar time working for Libya’s cultural attache in London.
Both women tried to take their former employers to an employment tribunal after they were laid off more than a decade ago but the governments successfully argued that they were protected from legal action.
The women pursued their case to the UK’s highest court, which ruled in 2017 that claiming immunity from employment laws was incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The government has now accepted that the law needs to be changed to protect domestic staff working in embassies.
The pair took their case to the European Court of Human Rights which ordered this week that the women should each receive at least $60,000 plus costs after the UK was found to have breached their right to a fair legal hearing about their cases.
The British government was ordered to pay, rather than the two states, because problems with UK legislation meant they both women could not bring their cases to court to try to claim back more than $270,000 in back pay and damages.
“This has taken longer than it should have done,” said Ms Janah’s lawyer Jamila Duncan-Bosu. “But what they [the women] have achieved is significant because the UK government says it will now fix the problem.”
