Children demand new international law to protect domestic workers

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6 June 2010

Child domestic workers from around the world are visiting Geneva to meet national governments and to persuade ministers on the need for a new international convention to protect domestic workers.

Current and former child domestic workers from Peru, India and Togo will be leaving their countries for the first time in order to attend the International Labour Organization (ILO) conference on 7-14 June. The young people will be speaking at a meeting organised by Anti-Slavery International and Children Unite on 9 June.

The child domestic work ‘champions’ will also meet representatives of governments, trade unions and employers from across the world to persuade them to vote for the adoption of a new ILO convention on domestic work, which they hope will also include rules to protect child domestic workers.

Millions of people are employed in domestic work across the world. In some countries, domestic work constitutes up to 10 per cent of total employment. Domestic work is also the most common form of child labour across the world

The child domestic work ‘champions’ attending the conference include:

Foulera, aged 16 and from Lome in Togo, has been a domestic worker since she was 13 years old. She cleans up after eight people and sleeps in the same room as the grandmother.

Foulera said: “Because I’m a domestic worker, I am not allowed to have visits. Even myself, I wouldn’t dare pay visits to others. I’m afraid. Nobody comes. They don’t accept it. I don’t go out. Sometimes I get on with the employer, sometimes I don’t if I have made a mistake. She beats me when I do something wrong. Nobody can hear me crying.

Fiama, aged 15 and from Callao in Peru, who works twice a week as a domestic worker, preparing lunch and looking after a six-year-old child. In Peru it is estimated that there are more than 100,000 child domestic workers

Fiama said: “They made me work without gloves. I have delicate hands and this burnt my hands and caused injuries. I think it is very important to speak up, but it is also important to know your rights, because if you don’t know, we will remain invisible and nobody will listen to us.”

Sujatha, aged 18 and from Bangalore, Karnataka, India. There are estimated to be 600,000 domestic workers in Karnataka alone.

Sujatha said: “I started working at the age of 13.  I cooked, cleaned the house, looked after the child, and cleaned the car and watered the garden. I never worked less than 15 hrs a day. I never had a day off.”

Audrey Guichon, Anti-Slavery International’s Domestic Work Coordinator, said: “In order to better protect child domestic workers it is essential to have a convention that protects all domestic workers. Child domestic workers are the most vulnerable in the industry but many adult domestic workers suffer low pay or are not even paid at all, also they can be prevented from leaving the home of their employers. Many are badly treated and some are physically abused or even raped. A new convention will be an important step for a better protection of their rights, and will promote domestic work as a valuable and respectable occupation.”

More than 160 current and former child domestic workers from Togo and Tanzania in Africa, Costa Rica and Peru in Latin America and India and Philippines in Asia were consulted about the ILO’s proposed standards on domestic work.

The young domestic workers expressed four key concerns:

1) Don’t employ underage workers.
2) Protect us at work.
3) Don’t stay silent on abuse.
4) Make us more visible

A short film of the young domestic wokers, produced by Living Lens is available here.