On June 16 International Domestic Workers Day, domestic workers are celebrating a landmark legal win by South Africa’s domestic workers for colleagues who die or are injured in their employers’ homes. For the first time, starting this year, domestic workers who suffer...
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Africa’s Domestic Workers Demand Urgent Reform in Pandemic Crisis
The International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) is urging more than 25 Africa-based affiliates to use the results of a new survey documenting the suffering of Africa’s domestic workers and their dependents during the pandemic to lobby their governments for urgent...
Solidarity Center Partner Takes Action to Support Returned Migrant Domestic Workers
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of migrant workers have been forced to return to their homes or are languishing in their destination countries without jobs, and Nepali migrant workers are no exception. In 2019, Nepal’s Department of Foreign Employment...
Domestic Workers Left out in the Cold
Domestic workers—at great risk during the pandemic crisis—are mobilizing to secure rapid relief and protection says the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF). This International Domestic Workers Day, more than 60 million of the world’s estimated 67 million...
INTERNATIONAL DOMESTIC WORKERS DAY
June 16, 2020 Today marks the fourth anniversary of the United Nation’s passage of Domestic Workers Convention 189, which asserts that domestic workers are entitled to the same basic rights as those available to other workers, including weekly days off, limits to...
Domestic Workers: Healing, Growing, Taking Action
As long-time union activists helping domestic workers form unions and get a voice on the job, Andrea Del Carmen Morales Pérez and Librada Maciel found themselves fighting burnout—from stress, from nonstop work and from unrecognized trauma they carried with them for...
When the Job Hurts: Workplace Injury and Disease among South Africa’s Domestic Workers
Through individual case studies and legal analysis, When the Job Hurts demonstrates the need for domestic workers in South Africa to receive the same coverage under the country's job safety and health compensation law as other workers. Download report.
Briefing on the Trafficking and Severe Labor Exploitation of Domestic Workers
Friday, January 17, 2020 Hosted by the Office of U.S. House Representative Pramila Jayapal and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, this briefing will focus on the prevalence of trafficking, severe labor exploitation, wage theft and abuse and harassment in...
Domestic Workers in Mexico Win Landmark Rights Law
Legislation requiring written contracts, paid vacation and annual bonuses for domestic workers passed Mexico’s House and Senate and is expected to be signed into law by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. The landmark law, which also prohibits employers from hiring...
Marie Constant: Empowering Domestic Workers in Lebanon
Marie Constant has worked as a domestic worker in Lebanon since 1997. Originally from Madagascar, Constant has been fortunate to have a good employer. But most migrant domestic workers are not so lucky. "In general, domestic workers [must] work from morning until...
Domestic Workers Fight for Their Rights in Kenya
Domestic workers are some of the world’s most vulnerable workers, comprising a significant part of the global workforce in informal employment. Lucy Nyangasi, 26, a domestic worker in Nairobi, is one of some 67 million workers who labor in households around the world,...
Racial Equality Tops Domestic Workers Meeting in Brazil
Some 40 domestic workers from 17 countries across North and South America and the Caribbean shared organizing tactics, hammered out resolutions and participated in Solidarity Center training on gender-based violence at work at a recent conference in São Paulo, Brazil....
Kenya Domestic Workers Push for Convention Ratification
Hundreds of domestic workers rallied in front of the Kenya Parliament in Nairobi today, lobbying legislators to ratify International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 189, Decent Work for Domestic Workers. The effort is part of a larger campaign to improve wages...
Hong Kong, SAR: Migrant Domestic Workers Must Live In
Migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong, Special Administrative Region of China, must live with their employers, according to a court ruling this week that rejected a case by a Philippine migrant worker who argued the rule violates Hong Kong SAR’s Bill of Rights and...
Migrant Domestic Workers Seek Rights in the Middle East
After spending seven years in Jordan as a domestic worker, Suryanti sought to return home to Indonesia to see her family. But her original employer, whom she left under duress, had confiscated her passport and would not give it back, leaving Suryanti in legal limbo as...
Victory for Kenya Domestic Workers Migrating for Jobs
Kenyans going abroad to work as domestic workers will be required to have contracts, salaries and details of their work assignments before they leave, according to the (Kenya) Daily Nation. The draft policy, crafted by the Labor Ministry and the Kenya Union of...
Rights Groups Decry Detention of Nepali Domestic Workers
Some two dozen human rights organizations are condemning the detention of two Nepali domestic workers in Lebanon, one of whom was deported. Sushila Rana and Roja Maya Limbu were detained “without formal and clear explanation of the charges levelled against them,”...
Domestic Workers See Gains, yet Struggle for Decent Work
Some 70 countries around the world have taken action to advance decent work for domestic workers in the five years since the International Labor Organization (ILO) adopted Convention 189, the standard covering domestic worker rights. The ILO passed Convention 189 on...
Afro-Colombian Domestic Workers Empowered
Afro-Colombian domestic workers, historically among the most marginalized workers in the country, are increasingly joining together to improve their working conditions and educate lawmakers and the public about their rights as workers. “Today, it is a breakthrough...
Migrant Domestic Workers Network a First in Jordan
Domestic workers in Jordan are set to celebrate the official formation of a worker rights network that includes migrant workers from Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. The September 19 launch is a first in Jordan and a rare move in the Arab region,...
