What is child DOMESTIC WORK?
What is the problem?
Child domestic workers are persons under 18 years of age who work in other people’s households (and sometimes their own families’) doing domestic chores, caring for children, running errands and helping their employers run small businesses. Child domestic workers include those who ‘live in’ and those who live separately from their employers. A child domestic worker may be paid, unpaid, or receive ‘in-kind’ remuneration such as food and shelter.
Children enter domestic work for a variety of reasons. Poverty and promise of a better future sometimes lead parents to send their children into domestic work or children to decide to enter it of their own accord. Despite widespread abuse and exploitation enduring myths prevail. Employers often take girls in their house as a ‘favour’, thinking that they are protecting them and providing opportunities but fail to recognise the level of exploitation and abuse they submit them to. Parents send their children to work with a rich family thinking that it will bring them new opportunities. Domestic work is also widely perceived as a less dangerous type of employment than others, hence making it more suitable for girls. It is also sometimes the only way girls can continue their schooling.
How big and Where is the problem?
While it is impossible to give precise and reliable figures about the number of children working as domestic workers it is estimated that millions of children are engaged in this type of employment globally.
- Most child domestic workers are between 12 and 17 but some are as young as five or six. The ILO estimates that domestic service is the single largest source of employment for girls under 16 around the world
- It is estimated that around 90% of child domestic workers are girls
- Child domestic work is performed throughout the world but it is estimated that Asia is home to about 60% of child domestic workers with 1.5 millions in Indonesia, 1 million in the Philippines and 100,000 in Sri Lanka
- Other estimates mention 300,000 child domestic workers in Haiti, 7,000 in Costa Rica and over 110,000 in Peru
Why is there a problem?
The main problems with child domestic workers are linked to their specific vulnerability as children, their invisibility as workers in the home and the low status that surrounds them.
Child domestic workers most at risk of abuse and exploitation are the ‘live-in’ child domestic workers, who are those who work and live in the home of their employers. They are often separated from their families, work far from home and benefit from no support networks.
The working conditions of child domestic workers are of particular concern. They often are paid very little money, sometimes none at all. They work very long hours, with ‘live-in’ child domestic workers often being on call 24 hours a day. They are made responsible for accomplishing a variety of tasks from cleaning, cooking, minding the children and livestock to collecting wood and more; some of these tasks can turn out to be very hazardous for very young children or children who are tired and overworked.
The working conditions child domestic workers are submitted to often go hand in hand with their exclusion from education, worsening their sense of isolation and diminishing their opportunities to get out of domestic work.
The issue of highest concern is the children’s vulnerability to verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Studies have shown that child domestic workers are commonly called names, humiliated, shouted at and insulted; they are often slapped, beaten, pushed and whipped; it is also not uncommon for girls to suffer sexual abuse in the home of their employer.
Our research has shown that a lot of child domestic workers have been trafficked, adding a layer of complexity to their situation. There is also growing evidence of the linkages between child domestic work and sexual exploitation.
Case studies
From May to October 2004, Anti-Slavery International and its local partners undertook consultations with more than 450 current and former child domestic workers in nine countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Consultations took place in Benin, Costa Rica, India, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Tanzania and Togo reflecting the reality of child domestic labour in many countries. The majority of those who participated were female -- but more than 100 boys also took part.
Cutting across cultural and language divides, the child domestic workers who were consulted had some clear messages about the best kinds of assistance to protect them from the daily abuse and exploitation that many of them endure. Their common appeal for those who seek to help them are:
- To provide opportunities for education and training which allow them to move on from domestic work;
- To assist them in seeking redress from abusive and/or exploitative employers;
- Not to alienate employers, but to make them part of the solution to their problems;
- To provide more services which cater specifically to the needs of child domestic workers (since their needs are often quite different from those of other child workers);
- To develop longer-term interventions, i.e. not to develop services for them and then pull-out after just one or two years;
- To develop interventions which take into consideration some of the issues which most affect child domestic workers, for example, early pregnancy and the effect of HIV/AIDS;
- More awareness raising about their situation, and to ensure that this awareness raising goes hand-in-hand with concrete services for child domestic workers;
Assistance in accessing government and state infrastructure that can help them; for example, in obtaining birth certificates, enrolling in school, in accessing health care, in locating families and returning home.
Perhaps the strongest message to emerge from the consultations was the importance of those providing assistance to talk to the children themselves about what they need. The work of Anti-Slavery International's partners in this area has shown that the most effective interventions are those which systematically involve child domestic workers themselves in the planning and implementation of their projects and programmes.
International Law
ILO Minimum Age Convention 138
ILO Worst Form of Child Labour Convention 182
The ILO is currently working on the adoption of an instrument on decent work for domestic workers by 2011.
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