Behind the stuccoed façades and manicured gardens of Chelsea, where townhouses sell for millions of pounds and blacked-out Range Rovers line the streets, little-noticed migrant domestic workers have for years struggled with excessive hours, intimidation, exploitation and other abuses. In many cases, the conditions amount to modern slavery — the legal term for victims being threatened or deceived into situations of subjugation, degradation and control.
One of them is Disay*, who was born in the Philippines, and says she was exploited by a high-profile Qatari family. Now 35, she first arrived in London in 2017 on a domestic worker visa. She says she worked as a cleaner, cook, nanny, personal assistant and nurse in the family’s 16-bedroom mansion up to 18 hours a day, seven days a week, while sleeping on a sofa in the sitting room.
