IMA Statement on the Adoption of the ILO Convention on Domestic Workers by the Committee on Domestic Workers

For reference: Eni Lestari
Chairperson, International Migrants Alliance
Tel. No.: (+852) 9608-1475

The International Migrants Alliance (IMA) congratulates domestic workers organizations, migrants groups and advocates for the rights of migrant workers who have advocated for the passing of an international instrument that can be used for the further advancement of domestic workers rights. Despite attempts by some governments, particularly of the European Union, to water down key provisions, the ILO Committee on Domestic Workers adopted the Convention on Domestic Workers that constituted a big step towards its passing.

Among migrant workers, an overwhelming number are in the domestic work sector. The frequent global crisis has pushed more and more people especially women to domestic work as socio-economic and political problems in migrant-sending countries escalate. Meanwhile, the labour market in migrant-importing countries has contracted to the point where migrant workers are relegated to the 3D jobs dirty, difficult and dangerous that include domestic work.

As domestic workers, migrants experience some of the worst kind of exploitation and abuse. Severely underpaid, overworked and discriminated in all spheres, domestic workers labour rights are routinely violated with impunity. They suffer from extreme physical, mental and sexual abuse, and even brutal deaths.

Labour laws were not made to cover domestic workers. Most are in live-in employment arrangement that keeps abuse and exploitation hidden from the public. The right to file grievances and seek redress is also denied from domestic workers not only because they are excluded from national labour laws but also due to other barriers such as insecurity of livelihood and lack of access to legal services that should be provided both by the sending and receiving governments of migrant workers.

Organizations of foreign domestic workers have been consistently struggling against policies and practices that impinge on the rights of domestic workers. National movements of migrants in different countries have worked to painstakingly build the solid strength of migrants to resist anti-migrants and anti-women laws like the wage campaign in Hong Kong, the struggle against the anti-migrant provisions of the Live-in Caregiver Program in Canada, the campaign against abuses in the Middle East, resistance against the exploitation of the au pair system in Europe, and many other issues.

In the regional level, the IMA recognizes the work of formations such as the United for Foreign Domestic Workers Rights (UFDWRs) a network of leading grassroots migrants organizations and NGOs who have been calling to have domestic work recognized as work even before the ILO started exploring the possibility of an ILO agreement on domestic work.

But the work is not yet over. Recommendations that will be included in the final instrument are now being discussed. The adopted convention with recommendations must still be passed in the plenary of the International Labour Conference one week from now. If approved, the migrants movement must utilize the ILO Convention on Domestic Work to further push the advocacy for the rights of domestic workers especially in the national level.

Agreements on migrant workers rights have been present for years but still, national governments routinely ignore provisions of these conventions and disregard their principles. National governments must be pushed to revise or create policies that will be in accordance with the convention. The convention must not suffer the fate of the implementation of previous instruments that are violated and ignored.

In this regard, the strength of the grassroots migrants' movement is, more than ever, needed.

As the grassroots movement, both of local domestic workers and foreign domestic workers, plays a crucial role in the advocacy for the convention, so will this movement play a key part in its implementation. Organizing, educating and mobilizing domestic workers must continue to genuinely change the condition of exploitation and oppression of domestic workers.

As the global formation of grassroots migrants with more than 130 member organizations in 26 countries, the IMA shall continue to struggle for the rights and wellbeing of domestic workers. The struggle will not let up for as long as commodification and modern-day slavery of migrants persists, there is every reason for migrants to fight.


Members and networks of the International Migrants Alliance are currently in Geneva, Switzerland for the 100th Session of the International Labor Conference such as the Filipino Migrant Workers Union (FMWU-HK), MIGRANTE-Canada, and CARAM-Asia.

Beyond the Passage of the ILO Convention on Domestic Work

The Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM) welcomes the recent adoption of the Domestic Workers’ Convention through the appropriate International Labour Organization (ILO) Committee. We see this as a promising development towards the much-desired passage of this Convention in the June 15-16 plenary of the ongoing International Labour Convention (ILC) in Geneva, Switzerland.

While this is indeed a milestone of sorts in the long advocacy of domestic workers for international statutes that formally guarantee their rights, it also reveals the obstacles that need to be hurdled in the short term and the hard work ahead that needs to be done in the long term. What the heated debate that preceded the Committee adoption forebodes is that the much sought-after plenary approval will not be a walk in the park, and that EU member representatives will be exerting their utmost to derail the proposed Convention’s passage through plenary. Furthermore, our long experience with international standards tells us that even with the approval of this Convention, governments on both ends of the migration divide will need to accede to it, promulgate pertinent laws that accord to it, and provide the necessary political muscle to implement and enforce such laws.

Even as this statement is being written, we can expect the Convention’s EU oppositors to be doing discreet spadework to undermine support for it. And they do not lack for potential allies, as many FDW-receiving countries would tend to support initiatives that preserve the oppressive status quo on labor migration, and this would certainly include preventing the passage of the proposed DW Convention. All migrant organizations and advocates who are inside and outside the ongoing 100^thSession of the ILC should bear this in mind, and conduct their own lobbying and advocacy efforts to counter this conservative and anti-migrant drumbeating by EU members.

As the current global crisis deepens and impacts severely on wages, jobs and other labor rights, governments in labor-receiving countries will rely increasingly on migrant-scapegoating in order to deflect the blame from themselves and their bankrupt neoliberal programs. Manifesting their opposition to the proposed DW Convention is certainly one way of highlighting this xenophobic mantra for the consumption of their restless constituents at home, especially those who buy into the Rightist concept of a “Fortress Europe”. As matters stand, these governments are still powerful enough to muster the numbers in contentious meetings such as the ongoing ILC, and so a multiplicity of methods in advocating for the rights of foreign domestic workers and labor in general is called for. Defeat in one arena of struggle (for we would be disregardful of historical lessons if we do not consider temporary setbacks) should not be a case for capitulation in others, and an all-too-real possibility of seeing the DW Convention voted down next week should prepare migrant organizations and advocates for the exploration of other channels of political advocacy.

Through its two core thematic programs, Migrant Trade Unionization (MTU) and Domestic Works As Work (DWAW), APMM will do its share in pushing for local and international statutes that promote the core rights of FDWs. With or without the passage of the DW Convention, it will remain committed to a comprehensive form of migrant advocacy that aims for social justice in its profoundest sense. In the coming months and years, we hope to be able to see the migrant workers’ movement mature into this kind of advocacy and expand its framework beyond statutory guarantees set by monolithic institutions specializing in the “management” of labor migration.

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Asia Pacific Mission for Migrants (APMM)
G/F, No.2 Jordan Road, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR

Tel. no.: (852) 2723-7536
Fax no.: (852) 2735-4559

General E-mail: apmm@hknet.com

Website: www.apmigrants.net

Update No. 1 - 100th ILC - Geneva, Switzerland

OPENING CEREMONY/DAY 1 AND DAY 2
June 1-2, 2011

The 100th International Labour Conference with the theme “Building a future with decent work” officially opened on Wednesday, 1 June 2011. Addressing some 3000 government, employer and worker delegates,ILO DG Juan Somavia emphasised on the new era of social justice.

Special guest, Finnish President Tarja Halonen cited the “absence of social justice” in the world, and said the ILO’s “values and policies are needed more than ever to create “a world with fewer tensions, greater fairness and strengthened security.”

In the afternoon, before the meeting on the Committee on Domestic Workers, the Workers’ Group met to discuss Art 1-9 of the Convention on Domestic Workers.

The Committee on Domestic Workers met at 3.30pm. Hans Cacdac, Deputy Minister of Labour, Philippines was elected unopposed as the Chairperson of the Domestic Workers Committee. Halimah Yaacob was elected as the Vice Chairperson of the Workers' Group and Paul Mackay was elected as the Vice Chairperson for the Employers’ Group.

Twenty-three Governments presented their preliminary statements where some expressed concerns of the descriptiveness and rigidity of the wordings of the Convention which would be difficult to implement in the national levels. (Malaysia was not amongst these governments)

It was most welcoming to hear Indonesia and Morocco who had not supported the Convention last year, change their positions to support the Convention.

On Thursday, 2 June 2011, the Workers’ Group met at 10-11 am to discuss Art 10-15 with emphasis on discrimination, young domestic workers and payment of wages in kind.

At the 11am session of the Committee on Domestic Workers, 5 Civil Society Groups (including 2 domestic workers) were given 20 minutes to present their statements on better protection for domestic workers. The employers made a positive statement favouring the Convention supported by a Recommendation. However, the employers were concerned that the Convention would not be meaningful if it is too flexible. This may result in major provisions for domestic workers being excluded from the international labour standards.

The Workers’ Group Chairperson concluded the session by stating that many governments have been motivated to establish/amend national legislations for the better protection of domestic workers. For example the UAE which has developed a model contract.

More updates tomorrow!!


Malaysian workers' representatives at the ILC 2011

Parimala N
Mohammad Harun Al Rashid
Glorene Das
Sumitha Shaanthinni Kishna

Photo courtesy of Eman C. Villanueva, UFDWR delegate to the ILC.

(2 June 2011, 3.45pm - Geneva, Switzerland)