This boss paid her worker about 65 cents an hour. Now she is facing the consequences (2024)

When Priyanka Danaratna moved from Sri Lanka to Australia to work for a diplomat nearly a decade ago, she was optimistic about her future.

She was in her mid-thirties and had never visited another country before.

But that optimism faded when she arrived in Canberra and unknowingly entered a "slavery-type arrangement", says David Hillard, a pro bono partner at law firm Clayton Utz.

Ms Danaratna was employed as a domestic worker in the home of the then-deputy high commissioner of Sri Lanka, Himalee Subhashini de Silya Arunatilaka, between 2015 and 2018.

"She worked seven days a week for three years, and she had two days off in that entire time — and she did that because she burned her hand while preparing some food," Mr Hillard says.

Over the course of those three years, she was only paid $11,212 for her work.

Mr Hillard says effectively she worked nonstop for three years for about 65 cents an hour.

For context, when Ms Danaratna began working in Australia in 2015, the national minimum wage for a 38-hour week was $656.90.

Mr Hillard said her employment was in breach of Australian employment laws because she was paid such low wages and worked more hours a week than allowed under the appropriate award. She was not given unpaid breaks, not paid overtime or penalty rates, not paid regularly or issued payslips, which are all breaches of the Fair Work Act.

"It's an example of how modern slavery works," he says.

"Vulnerable employees find themselves trapped in a situation where their lives are nothing but work, in a job they cannot escape."

Mr Hillard represented Ms Danaratna in legal proceedings against Ms Arunatilaka in a civil case under the Fair Work Act. She was accused of underpaying her employee $374,000.

In a judgement handed down on Thursday, the Federal Court found that Ms Arunatilaka breached the Fair Work Act in a number of ways, including not paying in accordance with Australian employment laws.

In addition to $374, 000 in unpaid wages, the court ordered Ms Arunatilaka to pay more than $169,000 in interest, bringing the total owing to more than $543,000.

Ms Arunatilaka is now the Permanent Representative of Sri Lanka to the United Nations Office at Geneva.

"She's in a very senior diplomatic role now in Geneva. I think it's absolutely appalling that this can be allowed to happen," Mr Hillard says.

"But I think it also reflects on perhaps the nature of … the diplomatic world in that I suspect that perhaps Ms Arunatilaka and the Sri Lankan government have not viewed what she's done as something that's particularly extraordinary. That this perhaps is just par for the course in terms of how domestic workers are treated in the residences of senior diplomats."

Confiscated passport

When Ms Danaratna arrived in Australia in September 2015, she spoke very little English. She was surprised when Ms Arunatilaka asked for her passport upon her arrival.

"She told me that she would give me the passport back before I left Australia. Ms Arunatilaka did not explain why she wanted my passport. I gave my passport to her. I never saw that passport again," Ms Danaratna said in an affidavit.

Later, when she discovered Australia's average wage, she "felt foolish for coming to Australia for such a small salary."

The small amount she did earn was paid into a Sri Lankan bank account, which she could not easily access from Canberra.

Mr Hillard says more work needs to be done by the government to ensure workers like Ms Danaratna aren't completely isolated and taken advantage of while they are in Australia.

"There needs to be some way of checking in that people have access to their passport," he says.

"If you're in a foreign country and your passport is removed, and the only place that you can apply to get your passport replaced is through the local diplomat, then you're effectively going to be very vulnerable for these sorts of slave-like arrangements, and so we have to make sure that doesn't happen," Mr Hillard says.

The escape plan

Ms Danaratna claims that during her time in Canberra, she was not allowed to leave the house that she lived in with the former Deputy High Commissioner and her husband without permission. When she did leave the house, she was often accompanied by someone from the household.

Sometimes she was permitted to go for a short walk around the neighbourhood on her own. Eventually this helped her escape.

"Ms Arunatilaka was not impolite to me and never made threats to me. However, she did not provide me with satisfactory clothing and food. I did not feel like I was being treated properly," she said in her affidavit.

It wasn't until she had relayed her negative experiences to her family in Sri Lanka that they advised her to reach out to the Salvation Army in Australia.

"On August 14, 2018, I told Ms Arunatilaka and her husband that I was going for a walk. I left Ms Arunatilaka's residence, and the two people from the Salvation Army were waiting for me nearby in a car," she said.

The group drove to Sydney, where Ms Danaratna was taken to a Salvation Army safe house.

Not an uncommon case

Claudia Cummins is the modern slavery lead for the Salvation Army. She says cases like these aren't uncommon.

"Over the time that the safe house program has existed to support people who've experienced modern slavery, we've often seen quite a high number of people experiencing what's known as domestic servitude — so, being treated like a slave, often in a home environment, in a private home," she explains.

"And of those people, we've certainly seen probably at least a dozen people who've been exploited by a diplomat."

Mr Hillard has also witnessed this, as he's worked on a number of cases involving domestic workers who've been taken advantage of financially by former diplomats in Australia.

"[Clayton Utz has] been involved in matters with senior diplomats from a range of countries, including India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka," he says.

"They all follow a fairly similar pattern of … people who are extremely isolated within the Australian community, who are brought here and paid what would be seen by anyone in Australia as really pitiful wages, to work for a senior diplomat in their home."

Diplomatic immunity

Diplomats receive a wide range of privileges and immunities while serving in Australia. These entitlements are covered by the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which enables diplomats to conduct their work in a foreign country without hindrance.

These privileges include immunity from searches, arrests, prosecutions or even having to give evidence.

However Ms Arunatilaka is not immune to prosecution in the case concerning her treatment of Ms Danaratna, says Mr Hillard.

"In Australia, over the last few years, there have been a series of court cases that have … set up quite a precedent globally," he says.

"That is in respect of the private employment arrangements that diplomats enter into, to have somebody cook and clean their house, they don't have any diplomatic immunity protection in respect of that, once they've ceased to be a diplomat.

"So although Ms Arunatilaka might enjoy some other diplomatic immunity in respect of things she did as part of her official duties, in terms of employing someone to cook and clean for her for 16 hours a day, seven days a week, she has no diplomatic immunity, and that's why we're able to bring these proceedings."

Ms Cummins says the Salvation Army would like to see justice for any person who has experienced similar treatment, regardless of who has exploited them.

"If anybody has identified someone who might be at risk of a modern slavery situation, or they suspect they could be experiencing modern slavery, whether that's in domestic work or in any other setting … support is available," she says.

"Obviously, people can contact the Australian Federal Police for support, but you can also contact the Salvation Army and other community-based organisations for support as well."

The ABC contacted Himalee Arunatilaka for comment, but she did not respond at time of publication.

The United Nations Office in Geneva was also asked for a comment on the proceedings.