United Nations Economic and Social Council
Commission on Human Rights
Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and protection of Minorities
Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery
23rd Session
Geneva, May 1998
Children working as domestic servants: progress and challenges
In 1996, Anti-Slavery International presented information to the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery about the situation of children working as domestic servants around the world, and, in particular, brought to the Working Group's attention the lack of legal protection afforded to child domestics at the national level. Over the past two years, since the ILO announced its intention to adopt a new convention against extreme forms of child labour, we have also been paying attention to developing a new international standard to indicate when children should not be employed as domestic workers - building on the recommendation which came out of this Working Group that there should be a ban on "under-age maid service".

This year Anti-Slavery would like to bring to the Working Groups' attention a number of practical measures adopted by NGOs working at the national level that have made a real improvement to the lives of child domestic workers.

In November 1997 Anti-Slavery attended an international meeting of NGOs in the Philippines -- funded by the ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child labour (IPEC) -- to share information and programmatic experience on the issue of child domestic workers. This Regional Consultation on Child Domestic Workers in Asia brought together NGOs actively working with child domestics in 11 Asian countries: Bangladesh; Cambodia; India; Indonesia; Laos; Nepal; Pakistan; the Philippines; Sri Lanka; Thailand and Vietnam.

Much useful information was provided by NGOs at the meeting regarding 'best practice' for improving the situation of child domestics at local and national levels. Organisations trying to help child domestic workers have, for example, succeeded in setting up "drop-in centres" where children can meet and talk with others, breaking their isolation. However, while these benefit teenagers, it is generally difficult to persuade employers to allow younger children to attend. Some organisations provide informal education in such centres, on the grounds that few child domestics have finished their primary school education.

Participants at the consultation heard from an organisation in Mumbai (Bombay), India, representing adult as well as child domestic workers, or "in-house workers" as they call themselves, which has convinced employers to allow teenage domestic workers one day a week off and a month of paid holiday each year; they have also established minimum wage levels for the first time and are urging both the national government and state governments to adopt laws fixing the minimum age for domestic workers as 14. In Bangladesh, an organisation is trying to establish minimum standards by persuading employers to sign a contract of employment in which their child servant's responsibilities -- and remuneration and rights -- are specified. In Manila, the capital of the Philippines, Anti-Slavery witnessed how local organisations have helped teenage domestic workers to organise themselves in order to call for improvements in their working conditions -- meeting once a week in a local park for mutual support and to share their experiences. Telephone hotlines have been established to allow child domestics and others to report cases of abuse.

The consultation provided information about other existing programmes, such as those dealing with the effect of abuse by employers. In Sri Lanka, a Colombo-based NGO ensures that the children are provided with long-term treatment for trauma. The organisation also provides counselling for employers, targeting employers to persuade them from harassing child domestics. In India, an NGO based in Chennai (Madras) has organised its own pre-school training for child domestics to provide them with the necessary skills and confidence to re-enter formal education. Educational assistance is also provided to help the child obtain the necessary papers, such as birth certificates, needed for enrollment.

Also at this consultation information was shared about an important initiative that took place in Bangladesh during 1997, where a local NGO with an established and highly innovative programme on child domestic workers in Dhaka hosted a two week exchange programme for field workers from seven Asian countries, with the focus on sharing practical experience and working methods. The exercise proved to be extremely useful for the participants, many of whom are now utilizing what they have learned to help child domestics in their own countries.

Interestingly, none of these initiatives starts out by trying to ban the employment of young children as domestics, although this may be what the NGOs concerned would like to see achieved. The Mumbai case, however, gives a good idea of what can be achieved once the domestic workers themselves become organised enough to exert pressure for their own rights. Also of note is that, over the past year, governments have expressed support for the ILO's strategy of giving priority to the elimination of extreme forms of child labour, but we have nevertheless not noticed the governments of countries where hundreds of thousands of young girls and boys leave home to work as domestic servants taking any steps to regulate this sector.

We still wonder whether this is as a result of a lack of awareness by governmental authorities, or a lack of political will. Undoubtedly far more information is publicly available now than five or ten years ago about the situation of children working as domestics. To ensure that adequate factual information is available, last year Anti-Slavery published, with the support of ILO-IPEC, Child Domestic Workers - a handbook for research and action, to provide NGOs working at grass roots with the necessary practical tools to collect and distribute reliable information in order to stimulate local action.

In some countries we know that the authorities are fully aware of both the scale of child employment as domestics and of the abuses occuring. This is certainly the case in Haiti, for example, where the plight of the restaveks has received considerable attention. But it is probably appropriate to look at a quite different country, where the situation of child domestics has not come under the international spotlight in the same way. In Morocco, for example, a major NGO carried out research in 1995 about the situation of young maids living with their employers and came across a wide range of abuses. Although recruitment agencies are not legally entitled to supply employers with pre-teenage girls, the research revealed that over 70 per cent of the maids interviewed were below 13, with a quarter below ten. As in other countries, however, knowing the facts has not in itself shown either the authorities or NGOs what should be done. As in the other countries we have mentioned, an information campaign to disuade families from employing young children as maids has been tried, but it is not clear whether this has had any effect.

As the Working Group may already know, the current draft of the ILO's new standard on child labour proposes to focus on suppressing the worst or 'most extreme' forms of child labour, including "all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale or trafficking of children, forced or compulsory labour, debt bondage and serfdom".

Although the current draft of this new standard makes no explicit mention of children working as domestics, the proposed non-binding guidelines to the convention (known as a Recommendation) suggest that the authorities pay particular attention to the situation of children under 12, and also the special situation of girls. The Recommendation also suggests that a determinant of whether a form of child labour should be considered 'extreme' includes "work under particularly difficult conditions such as for long hours, during the night, or without the possibility of returning home each day." Such a provision is clearly intended to address the issue of live-in domestic work by both boys and girls.

Clarifying international standards may help somewhat, but at the moment it remains a major challenge to identify the most effective ways of changing the behaviour of both employers and the families who seem happy to supply their young children to work for others.