An au pair in the Washington, D.C., area says she was forced into involuntary servitude by her host family — a Saudi couple employed by the World Bank — claiming that the two denied her food, wages, or time off, forbade her from going outside without their permission, and threatened to have her deported if she told anyone about the horrific conditions she was enduring.
World Bank operations officer Samah Badawi and data visualization specialist Mohammed Manar El-Iriqsousi began abusing “Jane Doe,” as she is identified in court filings, the moment she arrived from Indonesia to take care of their two young children, according to a civil rights lawsuit first obtained by The Independent.
Badawi and El-Iriqsousi isolated Doe from the rest of the world, monitored her every move using a network of security cameras set up in their Reston, Virginia, home, and told her they “knew where her family lived” in Indonesia, in an attempt to coerce her into silence, the lawsuit alleges.
For lunch, Doe was “only permitted to eat the family’s leftovers from the day before,” the suit contends. “On one occasion, Badawi accused [Doe] of stealing the family’s bread for her own meals. This intimidation resulted in [Doe] eating very little and losing weight” while working for [Badawi and El-Iriqsousi].”
Doe is now in hiding, terrified of her former bosses coming after her, according to the suit.
Badawi could not be reached on Monday for comment, while voicemails left for El-Iriqsousi went unreturned.
Badawi and El-Iriqsousi recruited Doe to work as a housekeeper and nanny for their two kids via GreatAuPair.com, according to Doe’s lawsuit, which was filed April 4 in Alexandria, Virginia, federal court. It says the existing nanny at the time told Doe that Badawi preferred Indonesian help because she had had an Indonesian domestic as a child growing up in Saudi Arabia.
Shannon Pitts, co-founder of GreatAuPair.com, told The Independent that the “safety and fair treatment of caregivers is paramount to our mission,” and that Badawi and El-Iriqsousi have since been banned from the platform.
“GreatAuPair was never notified regarding the allegations in this lawsuit,” Pitts said. “Had Ms. Doe contacted us, we would have taken immediate action to remove the offending employer from the GreatAuPair.com platform and support her in seeking help from appropriate authorities.”
GreatAuPair is not named as a defendant in Doe’s suit, but “will assist with this matter as needed,” according to Pitts.
“While this is an isolated incident among our many successful placements, we take it extremely seriously,” he said.
Doe’s lawsuit says she would travel to the U.S. on a G-5 visa, which allows foreign officials of international organizations such as the World Bank to hire household workers from abroad. The program is tightly monitored by the U.S. Department of State, which, in response to past abuses by employers, has strict rules and protections surrounding the treatment of those on G-5 visas.
Doe signed the employment agreement Badawi sent, which laid out the terms of the job: $11 an hour for a 35-hour work week lasting from Monday to Friday, and an overtime rate of $14.25 an hour, according to the lawsuit. It says she would get seven days of sick leave, 14 days of paid vacation, and two paid holidays per calendar year.
She arrived in the United States and began work on April 17, 2022, but soon realized that things were very different from what Badawi had promised, the suit continues. For starters, the promised 35-hour work week in fact lasted nearly 100 hours, with Doe required to work all seven days, from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., according to the suit.
Doe was prohibited from eating anything for lunch aside from the family’s leftovers, was forbidden from eating dinner until the family was done with theirs, and, on weekends, the couple “refused to allow [Doe] to leave the residence, unless she obtained their express permission,” the lawsuit states.
Doe, a practicing Muslim, also alleges she was not given time to pray, as her faith requires.
“Even when [Doe] was allowed to pray after repeatedly asking for this time, [Badawi and El-Iriqsousi] would sometimes instruct her to ‘make it quick,’” the lawsuit contends. “On many occasions, [Badawi and El-Iriqsousi] did not permit [Doe] any time to pray, and [she] would have to miss required prayers.”
Further, the suit says, the pair “intimidated [Doe] on a regular basis to hold her in forced labor and prevent her from departing their employ.” Badawi soon told Doe she would only be paid $700 a month, less than half of what she had been promised, according to the suit. Yet, it says, Badawi never directly received any of the money she earned, save for “a few hundred dollars in cash” over the course of an entire year.
In May 2022, Doe told Badawi and El-Iriqsousi that she wanted to go back to Indonesia, the lawsuit states. But, according to the suit, the two told Doe that “they had just spent money for her to travel the U.S. and that she must work off that cost before she could leave.”
“[Doe] had no money to flee or to purchase a ticket to return home,” the suit maintains.
That summer, things began to get even worse, according to the lawsuit. It says Badawi and El-Iriqsousi told Doe they would sue her if anything happened to their children under her watch, the potential consequences of which “terrified” Doe. The two called Doe “stupid,” and “lazy,” and, the suit says, they threatened her that if she told anyone about her working conditions, they would have people harm her family back home.
“On the rare occasions when [Doe] had any contact with other people, [Badawi and El-Iriqsousi] would interrogate her about any communications she had with them,” the suit states.
In July 2022, Doe had her first check-in with the State Department’s Office of Protocol, which ensures G-5 employers are abiding by the rules. Badawi and El-Iriqsousi instructed Doe to lie to the officials, and told her that if she didn’t tell them everything was fine, that she would be deported, according to the suit. Still, Doe was unable to fudge the whole truth, and, the suit says, admitted to the State Department that she had not been taken to open a bank account, nor had her employers gotten her a Social Security number, as is compulsory.
Doe’s candor enraged Badawi and El-Iriqsousi, according to the suit. In November, it says, they finally took Doe to open a bank account, but kept it empty and did not allow her access to it.
As December rolled around, Doe was allowed, for the first time, to socialize outside Badawi and El-Iriqsousi’s home, the lawsuit states. It says she attended an event at the Indonesian Embassy in Washington, D.C., where she met other Indonesians living nearby. Later that month, Badawi and El-Iriqsousi reluctantly gave Doe permission to take a short trip to Boston, according to the suit.
While away, Doe spoke up for the first time about her working conditions, the lawsuit states. Doe’s new Indonesian friends became concerned for her safety, and told her to ask the State Department for help, it says. Before Doe’s next meeting with the Office of Protocol, Badawi and El-Iriqsousi prepared a batch of faked time cards, and had Doe deposit several backdated checks into her bank account to make it appear she had been getting paid regularly, according to the suit.
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On March 2, 2023, Doe arrived at her check-in meeting at the Office of Protocol with a bag containing “essential belongings,” the lawsuit states. This time, it says, Doe told State Department officials the truth: that the time cards were bogus, and that she had no way of getting at whatever funds were now in her bank account.
A fearful Doe asked if she would be deported over this, and after being assured she would not, she decided not to return to Badawi and El-Iriqsousi’s home. Instead, she “took refuge in the home of an individual she met during the Boston trip,” according to the suit.
“However, when [Doe] did not return from the check-in, [Badawi and El-Iriqsousi] started harassing the people they knew [Doe] had met during the Boston trip,” the lawsuit states. “[They] stalked the property searching for [Doe], and [Doe] was forced to flee again to another location. In fear of [Badawi and El-Iriqsousi], [Doe] has since lived in hiding at various safe locations.”
Pitts told The Independent that GreatAuPair’s terms of service “explicitly require users to comply with the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act, state and local law, and applicable visa regulations.”
“We take a strong stance against any form of labor exploitation and have zero tolerance for those who violate labor laws,” he said.
Doe is seeking compensatory damages and punitive damages, as well as triple her unpaid wages, plus interest, in addition to attorneys’ fees.
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