By Martin Delgado Mail on Sunday 16th October 2011.

David and Samantha Cameron’s nanny is a Nepalese woman who was recruited from a charity, which offers help and advice to immigrants seeking to escape abusive employers.
Gita Lima has been working for the Prime Minister and his wife for several years and helped to care for their severely disabled son Ivan, who died in 2009.

She was taken on by the couple after they advertised the position with the charity Kalayaan, which campaigns to protect the rights of domestic workers.

Ms Lima, who has not been publicly identified before, is understood to have applied for permission to stay in Britain permanently, though it is not clear what stage the process has reached.

Critics of the Government’s immigration policies say proposed changes to visa rules would make it impossible for women like her to work for anyone other than the employer who brought them into Britain.

They claim that would leave them vulnerable to exploitation.

Jenny Moss, a community worker at Kalayaan, told the Independent on Sunday: ‘Mr Cameron clearly understands the issues faced by migrant domestic workers and the reason why the right to change employer is so important to protect them from violence and exploitation.

‘It seems as though he either does not know about the policies proposed in the Home Office, or he has not made the connection between his Government’s proposals and the horrific consequences they could have for people like his own nanny.’

The proposed change is part of a Government plan to bring about large-scale reductions in migration from non-EU countries by 2015.

But it would prevent employers such as the Camerons from being able to give migrants a second chance at a working life in the UK, according to campaign groups. Ms
Lima lived with the couple and their children at their home in Notting Hill, West London, before joining them in Downing Street after Mr Cameron became Prime Minister last year.

It is not clear if she ‘lives in’ or has her own accommodation. Downing Street said the issue was a ‘private matter’.

Tags: charity Kalayaan, David and Sam Cameron, Gita Lima, Home Office, Mail on Sunda, Martin Delgado, Nanny