Ten years later, domestic workers are still fighting for equal rights and access to decent work

The crisis has underscored the urgent need to formalize domestic work in order to ensure that these people can access decent work, starting with the extension and implementation of measures in the field of labor law and social security that apply to all domestic workers. ”

Guy Ryder, Director-General of the ILO

– The report states that the COVID-19 pandemic has led to the worsening of working conditions which were already very poor. Domestic workers have been more vulnerable to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic due to persistent gaps in labor law and social protection. This is particularly the case for the more than 60 million domestic workers who operate in the informal economy.

“The crisis has underscored the urgent need to formalize domestic work in order to ensure that these people can access decent work, starting with the extension and implementation of labor law measures and social security provisions that apply to all domestic workers, ”says Guy Ryder, Director-General of the ILO.

Ten years ago, the adoption of the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No.189) was hailed as a breakthrough for tens of millions of domestic workers around the world, most of whom are domestic workers. women.

Since then, a number of progress has been made, such as a drop of more than 16 percentage points in the number of domestic workers who are totally excluded from labor laws and regulations.

However, a good number of domestic workers (36 per cent) remain totally excluded from the scope of the labor code, highlighting the urgent need to close the legal gaps, especially in Asia and the Pacific as well as in the Arab States, where these gaps are greatest.

Even when they are covered by labor and social security laws, the question of their implementation remains an important source of exclusion and informal work. According to the report, only one in five domestic workers (18.8 per cent) has effective social security coverage linked to their work.

Domestic work remains a predominantly female sector, employing 57.7 million women who represent 76.2 percent of domestic workers. While women make up the majority of the workforce in Europe and Central Asia as well as the Americas, men outnumber women in the Arab States (63.4 percent) and North Africa , and make up just under half of all domestic workers in South Asia (42.6 percent).

The vast majority of domestic workers are employed in two regions of the world: around half of them (38.3 million) are in Asia and the Pacific, largely due to the weight of China, another significant part ( 17.6 million) located in the Americas.

Nowadays, domestic workers are better organized and are more likely to defend their views and interests themselves. Their organizations, as well as employers’ organizations of domestic workers, have played an important role in the progress made so far.

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