Domestic Workers Fight for Their Rights in Kenya

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, often in isolation and at risk of exploitation and abuse. The Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotel, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers (KUDHEIHA) is attempting to improve the working conditions and wages of domestic workers like Lucy, as well as those who migrate out of the country for work, with the support of the Solidarity Center.

Solidarity Center, Kenya, Domestic Worker

Fighting back against exploitation, during the past year, domestic workers organized by KUDHEIHA joined with allies in hosting a series of public informational forums in the Mombasa area to educate domestic worker migrants about their rights, and rallied in Nairobi for ratification by Parliament of International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 189, Decent Work for Domestic Workers.

In Mombasa, to educate communities that send domestic workers to the Middle East about migrant worker rights, KUDHEIHA joined with allies in hosting a series of public informational forums throughout the area during the month of August last year. Local migrant worker and anti-human trafficking organizations, TRACE Kenya, Haki Africa and the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights helped support the events. 

Solidarity Center, Kenya, Mombasa, domestic workers, migration, KUDHEIHA

KUDHEIHA joins with local allies in a street mobilization in the Majengo area in Mvita in August 2017, inviting the public to a labor migration forum located at the chief`s office in Majengo. Credit: Solidarity Center

Solidarity Center, Kenya, Mombasa, KUDHEIHA, domestic workers, migration

KUDHEIHA staff hand out information booklets for Kenya`s migrant workers in a market in Majengo, inviting market vendors to a public forum on safe migration. Credit: Solidarity Center

The Safe Migration Forum in the Majengo area of Mvita was opened by the local chief and attended by village elders and local administrators, including the county commissioner, as well as by members of the general public. There they learned from former migrant domestic workers to various Gulf countries that unscrupulous labor brokers in Kenya and elsewhere often will not show migrating workers their contracts until they are at the airport or bus station, and frequently, the contracts are written in Arabic or a language the workers cannot understand. When they arrive at their destination, the contracts and promised salaries may even change.

Solidarity Center, Kenya, Mombasa, domestic workers, migration, GCC

Bakari Mwakifunga, Mikindani constituency chief, opens the Safe Migration Forum, attended by member of the public, village elders and local administrators, including the county commissioner. Credit: Solidarity Center

Mikindani constituency – Bakari Mwakifunga

Solidarity Center, Kenya, Mombasa, domestic workers, migration, GCC, Gulf Countries

A Safe Migration Forum participant shares her experience as a migrant worker in Jordan. Credit: Solidarity Center

In Nairobi, hundreds of domestic workers rallied in front of the Kenya Parliament on February 21, 2018, advocating for 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 and working conditions for the country’s domestic workers by (KUDHEIHA) as well as to help build momentum for a global movement for domestic workers. Although the convention went into force in 2013, it has been ratified by only 23 countries. Of these, only two African countries have ratified the convention: South Africa and Mauritius.

Solidarity Center, Kenya, KUDHEIHA, domestic workers, C189,

Kenya.C189 Rally.Banner.SC.2.18

KUDHEIHA’s push for government ratification of Convention 189 this year is an effort to secure additional recognition, rights and standards for Kenyan domestic workers working inside and outside the country. That effort is part of a larger campaign to help build momentum for a global movement for domestic workers as well as improve wages and conditions for the country’s domestic workers by KUDHEIHA. Convention 189 established the first global standards for the more than 50 million domestic workers worldwide, addressing wages, working conditions, benefits, labor brokers and child labor. 

Domestic workers and supporters rally in front of the Kenya Parliament in Nairobi on February 21, 2018, advocating for legislators to ratify International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 189, Decent Work for Domestic Workers. Credit: Solidarity Center

“It is amazing. It shows [the] power of the domestic workers in Kenya,” said Vicky Kanyoka, Africa regional coordinator for the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF). 

IDWF, Domestic Workers,Vicky Kanyoka

Credit: IDWF

On June 16, International Domestic Workers Day, we honor the women who make other people’s lives easier. This day, as every day, the Solidarity Center is committed to helping domestic workers attain safe and healthy workplaces, family-supporting wages, dignity on the job and greater equity at work and in their community. The Solidarity Center works with domestic workers and other organizations that represent them around the world, including in Cambodia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

Racial Equality Tops Domestic Workers Meeting in Brazil

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.

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A Solidarity Center gender equality training was part of the domestic workers’ conference. Credit: IDWF

The conference is one of a series of regional planning meetings domestic workers around the world are holding in advance of the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) congress November 16–18 in South Africa. Domestic workers from all regions will bring recommendations to the IDWF Congress. Latin American domestic workers voted to recommend the IDWF adopt resolutions involving safety and health, strengthening leadership of Afro-descendent domestic workers where they are a majority and supporting LGBT domestic workers who face double discrimination on the job.

Delegates also nominated new leadership for the region, Andrea Morales from Nicaragua and Carmen Britez of Argentina, both former domestic workers.

In one of the most powerful moments of the conference, migrant domestic workers and Afro-descendent domestic workers shared their strategies during a panel on racial equality and, in the process, “restored dignity back to themselves and to the work they do,” says Adriana Paz, IDWF Latin America regional coordinator.

“Most domestic workers labor in modern slavery conditions without being paid but instead just provided with board and room—just like in slavery times,” says Paz, who participated in the conference. “Added to this lack of rights and freedoms, Afro-descendant domestic workers face the structural violence inflicted on them because of the intersection of their race, class and gender.”

In Brazil, 70 percent of domestic workers are Afro-descendent as are a majority of domestic workers in Colombia, who also are often internal migrants, moving from rural areas to large cities for employment.

Steps to Ensure Brazil Enforces Domestic Worker Standard

domestic workers, gender equality, racial equality, IDWF, Solidarity Center, worker rights

Credit: IDWF

Brazil’s ratification of International Labor Organization Convention (ILO) 189 on domestic workers’ rights earlier this year led to discussions about how Brazilian domestic workers could ensure the government is in compliance with the convention. Domestic workers from countries that have ratified Convention 189 say the first step is to push for creation of employer organizations so domestic workers have a collective employer with whom to negotiate contracts.

Enforcement of domestic workers’ rights is difficult in Brazil because the constitution does not allow authorities to “inspect” private homes, a challenge Argentine domestic workers say they have addressed by sending out mobile vans in neighborhoods where they find employers with domestic workers. From the vans, union staff and labor ministry representatives discuss with employers how to formalize workers and have paperwork ready for employers and specific materials for domestic workers as well.

Conference participants also took part in a Solidarity Center workshop on the upcoming International Labor Conference (ILC), where representatives from labor, employers and governments will negotiate a draft convention addressing gender-based violence at work. Five domestic workers from Latin America will attend the May 28–June 8 ILC, all of whom were active in the international campaign for passage of Convention 189 in 2011.

Domestic workers in the Africa, Asia and European regions held regional conferences earlier this year.

Domestic Workers Fight for Their Rights in Kenya

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 and working conditions for the country’s domestic workers by the Kenya Union of Domestic, Hotel, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers (KUDHEIHA) as well as to help build momentum for a global movement for domestic workers.

“It is amazing. It shows [the] power of the domestic workers in Kenya,” said Africa Regional Coordinator for the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF), Vicky Kanyoka.

Convention 189 established the first global standards for the more than 50 million domestic workers worldwide, addressing wages, working conditions, benefits, labor brokers and child labor. Although the convention went into force in 2013, it has been ratified by only 23 countries. Of these, only two African countries have ratified the convention: South Africa and Mauritius.

Domestic workers are some of the world’s most vulnerable workers, comprising a significant part of the global workforce in informal employment. In Kenya, domestic workers have suffered pay below minimum wage, long working hours, physical abuse, discrimination and lack of job security. More recently, domestic workers migrating to jobs in the Middle East from the Mombasa area, in an effort to escape poverty wages at home, have been preyed upon by unscrupulous labor brokers and employers.

KUDHEIHA—a Solidarity Center partner—has stepped up its political advocacy on behalf of domestic workers with the support of the Solidarity Center in recent years. Legislative changes favorable to domestic workers included an increase in their minimum wage in 2015 as well as an increase last year in the minimum wage from 10,955 to 12,825.72 Kenyan shillings ($108 to $126) per month.

KUDHEIHA’s current push for government ratification of Convention 189 is an effort to secure additional recognition, rights and standards for Kenyan domestic workers working inside and outside the country.

The Solidarity Center works with domestic workers and other organizations that represent them around the world, including in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Indonesia, Jordan, Kenya, Liberia, Mexico, South Africa and Sri Lanka.

Hong Kong, SAR: Migrant Domestic Workers Must Live In

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 other basic laws.

Hong Kong, domestic workers, migrant workers, Solidarity Center

Credit: Sally Choi

Expressing disappointment in the court’s decision, the Federation of Asian Domestic Workers Unions (FADWU) vowed to continue to demand that “the government revise regulations that prohibit living (outside the employer’s home) and develop concrete policies to ensure that migrant domestic workers who live with their employers enjoy reasonable living conditions.”

Among the 400,000 domestic workers in Hong Kong, SAR 335,500 are migrant domestic workers. Isolated in homes, they often are subject to physical and verbal abuse and subjected to overwork and poor living conditions. Some 52 million domestic workers are employed in countries where they are completely excluded from national labor laws.

Although Hong Kong, SAR laws cover the working conditions of domestic workers, FADWU urged the government to enforce the laws.

“The government should also take the responsibility to ensure enforcement and to conduct inspections to ensure that migrant domestic workers’ rights to privacy, self-improvement, rest time and private life are protected, and also to ensure that migrant domestic workers have safe working environments, equality and dignity,” the union says in a statement.

On Sunday, hundreds of migrant domestic workers rallied at Hong Kong SAR’s City Hall to demand an end to violence against women, and called on the government to reform regulations covering migrant workers to ensure they work regular hours, receive decent food and sleeping quarters.

 

Brazil Ratifies Domestic Worker Convention

Brazil Ratifies Domestic Worker Convention

Following years of campaigning by domestic workers and their allies across Brazil, the government in recent days ratified the International Labor Organization Domestic Workers Convention (No. 189), a binding standard in which domestic workers are entitled to full labor rights, including those covering work hours, overtime pay, safety and health standards and paid leave. Brazil is the twenty-fifth country to ratify Convention 189 and the fourteenth in the Americas region.

Since the ILO passed the convention in 2011, the National Federation of Domestic Workers (FENATRAD), the National Confederation of Retail and Service Workers (CONTRACS) and the Central Union of Workers (CUT) were among unions pushing for its ratification, ultimately securing 1.2 million signatures urging the government to ratify the measure.

In a statement celebrating ratification, FENATRAD also vows to continue in the “daily struggle for dignity, valorization and recognition of domestic work, work that moves and creates conditions for other workers to dedicate themselves to productive activities.”

Brazil Economy Slumps as Labor Rights Attacked

The majority of the 7 million domestic workers in Brazil are women, primarily indigenous people and Afro-Brazilians. Brazil’s slumping economy has seen a sharp increase of workers in the informal-sector jobs, with 121,000 domestic worker jobs created between December 2014 and April 2017. At the same time, more than 3.2 million jobs were lost in the formal private sector and some 600,000 jobs lost in the public sector, according to the Department of Statistics and Socioeconomic Studies in Brazil (DIEESE).

Further, more than 9 million people have been pushed below the poverty line since 2015 and 800,000 Brazilians entered the ranks of the unemployed between January and August 2017.

Although workers are celebrating passage of the Domestic Workers Convention, they say a labor reform law passed last year severely weakens their fundamental rights on the job. The law in part dismantles provisions on overtime pay and working hours; creates new forms of precarious contracting, such as “zero-hour” contracts that do not guarantee a minimum wage; and permits pregnant women and breastfeeding mothers to work in unhealthy environments.

The law also disproportionately impacts historically disadvantaged workers, such as women and Afro-Brazilians, who earn less and are much more likely to be unemployed or underemployed than their white male counterparts.

“The convention is to guarantee decent work, unlike the new law that removes basic rights of the worker and the worker,” says Myllena Calazans, a lawyer with FENATRAD.

With Solidarity Center support, FENATRAD recently registered as a national federation, became a member of the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWF) and is connecting with regional domestic worker organizations.

The Solidarity Center is also assisting the federation in education and outreach, including creation of a crossword puzzle magazine that informs Brazilian domestic workers about their rights. Many domestic workers spend numerous hours on public transportation commuting to and from work and do crossword puzzles during their commutes.

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