Domestic Slavery

There are over 100 million domestic workers worldwide, many of them migrants sending money home to families from their meagre wages. Too often these workers are exploited and abused, and because their work takes place in private household it is often hard to regulate. Existing international conventions, and some national labour laws, do not explicitly mention domestic work, which means they are extremely vulnerable to exploitation.

This week the ILO has been meeting in Geneva to design a convention to protect them. Following lengthy negotiations the ILO have agreed an historic Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, 50 years since the issue of their rights were first raised.

The Philippines Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA) noted that this new convention is a significant step forward. MFA’s co-ordinator, William Gois commented at the conference: “Workers in the informal sector have been brought into the formal sector for the first time. This represents a ray of hope for others working in the informal sector, that someday their rights will be protected as well.” For example some employers forbid migrant domestic workers from leaving the house and confiscate their passports, threatening deportation to keep them imprisoned and financially enslaved. This convention will aim to ensure domestic workers have the right to keep their own documents. Other standards discussed were maximum working hours and minimum age. The document also offers domestic workers a full rest day every week

Despite the UK promoting human rights in its development policy and specifically its commitment to enhancing labour rights internationally as a means of reducing poverty the UK government has not been standing up for domestic workers in the countries where laws and practice are not as good as in the UK. The UK government argued against the draft text which calls on governments to ‘give special attention to the needs of domestic workers who are under the age of 18 and above the minimum age of employment as defined by national laws and practice and take measures to protect them’. The UK government claimed that it has strong provisions against child labour and would not want to strengthen them further. This stance jeopardised attempts to improve working and living conditions for children in countries where mechanisms are not so strong, meaning children work in poor conditions with few protections. Noting the opposition, the UK representative cited the ILO advice and withdrew the amendment. The ILO says that children make up nearly 30 percent of the world's estimated 50 to 100 million domestic workers. Human Rights Watch investigations on child domestic workers in El Salvador, Guinea, Indonesia, Morocco, and Togo have found that some children begin work as early as age 6 and work up to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. They are paid poorly and vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse.