The International Labour Organisation says the vast majority of domestic workers are excluded from employment protection and vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse. In the first report of its kind, the UN agency said only 10 per cent of them benefited from the same kind of protection as other workers. Mark Gregory has more.
Nobody really knows how many domestic servants are employed around the world. The ILO puts the figure at a minimum of 52 million, but says the actual number could be tens of millions higher. More than 80 per cent of them are women. Indeed domestic service accounts for more than seven per cent of all women’s waged employment. Many domestic workers migrate to other countries to find work. The ILO says their terms of employment turn to be worse than other workers.
The Sri Lankan government has said it deplores the beheading of a Sri Lankan domestic worker by authorities in Saudi Arabia. In a statement, the government said it had appealed for a pardon for Rizana Nafeek, who was convicted of killing a baby in her care in 2005, a charge she denied.
Police in South Africa have fired tear gas and rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of stone-throwing farm workers taking strike action in the wine-producing Western Cape province. More than 40 people were arrested. The strikers, most of them black seasonal workers employed in white-owned fruit farms, are demanding a doubling of their daily pay of about $8. At least two protesters were killed in similar violence in November.