Julieta Yang’s voice trembled as she recalled living in a house with a boss she alleges made repeated unwanted sexual advances.

“I helped raise their children,” Yang said of Uber executive Cameron Poetzscher and Varsha Rao, head of global operations for Airbnb, whom she alleges in a lawsuit underpaid and sexually harassed her. “I served the whole family, I did their laundry, I cleaned their home. I did whatever they asked me to do at any time of the day… Despite that, they treated me with great disrespect.”

In a lawsuit against the couple, Yang says that she was only paid a flat rate for five hours of work a day as a live-in nanny in the couple’s San Francisco home, despite working more than nine-hour days for six consecutive days a week. Yang also says that she didn’t receive regular breaks or overtime pay.

The 45-year-old single mother of three from the Philippines also alleges that Cameron Poetzscher sexually harassed her by walking around the house nude in front of her, making comments of a sexual nature, making unwanted sexual advances, and unwanted touching.

The suit, filed in early October, alleges that when Rao and their two children were not home, Poetzscher would ask Yang to rub lotion on his back while he was naked and once asked her if she wanted extra money for doing “massage”.

Uber executive Cameron Poetzscher is accused of making unwanted sexual advances. Photograph: LinkedIn

Poetzscher and Rao have denied Yang’s allegations and have called them “completely and utterly false”. The couple’s attorney, Melinda Riechert, didn’t respond to a request to be interviewed for this article but filed a response to the court on 9 November that stated Poetzscher and Rao “deny, generally and specifically, each and every allegation” made by Yang.

The case has yet to go to trial, but domestic workers’ rights advocates say Yang is helping increase awareness about the rights of domestic workers, who are particularly susceptible to exploitation.

Domestic workers routinely face wage theft, long work hours without rest, hostile work environments and sexual harassment on the job, said Katie Joaquin the campaign coordinator for the California Domestic Workers Coalition. Immigrants can be even more vulnerable to exploitation.

According to a 2012 survey by the National Domestic Workers Alliance, 23% of almost 2,100 nannies, caregivers and housecleaners were paid below the state minimum wage, 35% worked long hours without breaks, and 19% reported being threatened, insulted or verbally abused. The survey shows that live-in domestic workers had it worse, with 67% paid below the state minimum wage and 36% threatened or verbally abused.

In the US, there were roughly 2 million workers in in-home occupations in 2012, according to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI). About 93% of the workers were women and more than 33% were immigrants.

“Domestic workers who work alone and behind closed doors are particularly vulnerable to sexual harassment, low pay, and other unfavorable working conditions,” said Winifred Kao, Yang’s lawyer and a senior staff attorney in the Worker’s Rights Program at the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco.

“That vulnerability is exacerbated by the fact that for many domestic workers, the place where they work is also where they live. Many are too scared to come forward and/or may not know that they have rights and can get help.”

Kao says both parties in the lawsuit are still investigating the claims and defenses made in the case.

Immigrants – particularly those who are undocumented – face exacerbated fear of reporting. Sylvia Lopez was a house cleaner in Oakland and Piedmont, California from 1997 to 2014. She recalls instances when male clients would try to trap her while she was cleaning a bedroom or bathroom and try to kiss her or touch her in a sexual way.

“I didn’t tell anyone or report it at the time because I was an undocumented immigrant at the time and I feared that reporting the incidents would get me deported and I would be torn apart from my family,” said Lopez, who is now a workers’ rights organizer for Mujeres Unidas y Activas (MUA), a grassroots organization that works with Latina immigrant women in the San Francisco Bay Area.

MUA is one of the seven organizations leading the California Domestic Workers Coalition, which is trying to organize domestic workers around the state and raise awareness about workers’ rights. In particular, the group educates workers about the California Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, a law that was passed in 2013 and extends overtime protections to personal attendants who care for and support thousands of individuals and families in California.

Yang has been working as a migrant domestic worker for almost 20 years and sends money to her three children in the Philippines, because she says finding permanent work in the Philippines was difficult. Yang worked for Poetzscher and Rao in Singapore from 2008 to 2013 and in San Francisco from 2013 to 2015, after her employers relocated to the US.

Joaquin says violations of the rights of domestic workers are underreported, both because many workers desperately need the work to support their families, and because they don’t know their rights.

“Oftentimes the worker is supporting their family here in the US or sending money back to their families in their home countries, so they can’t afford to just leave a job because they are being mistreated and be out of work for even a few weeks,” she said.

Yang’s case is being supported by Migrante Northern California, a chapter of Migrante international which supports Filipinos who work overseas. According to Princess Bustos of Migrante Northern California, Filipinos are the fastest-growing Asian group in California and many work as domestic workers or in-home care occupations. She says that in 2014, Filipino migrant workers remitted more than $24.3bn to the Philippines.

Lopez, who is a mother of two daughters, says she understands the fear, embarrassment and frustration that domestic workers face every day.

“Whenever I faced sexual harassment in the homes that I worked in, I would have so much internal conflict and think ‘why me, I’m not asking for this, i’m coming to work with dignity and a good attitude… all I want to do is work to support my family’,” said Lopez.

Lopez recently met Yang and says she understands how extreme her case is, especially since Yang is fighting two high-profile people with a lot of money.

Legal fight is just beginning

“Julieta is alone in this country and her entire family is in the Philippines but she has found the support and self confidence she needs to fight on her own behalf,” said Lopez.

But Yang’s fight is far from over. If the case goes to trial in the San Francisco County superior court, she will face the burden of proving the allegations she’s made against Poetzscher and Rao.

“Because the violations happened inside a private home and without any witnesses, it really comes down to Julieta’s word against the couple’s,” said Joaquin.

Carole Vigne, an attorney and the director of the Wage Protection Program at the Legal Aid Society Employment Law Center in San Francisco, says the burden is on the worker to prove that the violations did occur.

“I’ve seen employers doctor time sheets and forge signatures of workers to disprove allegations of wage theft… People go to extreme lengths to protect themselves from the allegations and the workers have to fight that,” Vigne said.

She says the cases are also emotionally hard for the women who file them and some cases take years to resolve.

“I am speaking out because I want to send the message to other migrant Filipinos and to all domestic workers everywhere to know that they are not alone and should not fear speaking up if they are being mistreated on the job. We are human beings and we deserve to be treated with dignity and respect,” said Yang in a statement.

Lopez says she wishes she knew about MUA and the other organizations supporting domestic workers when she was suffering in silence in the 1990s and early 2000s.

“When someone listens to us, we are empowered,” Lopez said.