ANKARA (ILO News) -Under the “Supporting Resilience and Social Cohesion with Decent Livelihood Opportunities” and “More and Better Jobs for Women” projects, ILO Office for Türkiye and Ankara Metropolitan Municipality held on 15-16 December the first episode of 2-day workshop series in the context of activities aiming to improve occupational safety and health (OSH) conditions, and implementing inclusive labour market governance policies that protect labour rights of various groups including working refugees and women.

Organized to bring together representatives from various public agencies, confederations of labour unions, employers’ organizations and civil society organizations, the workshop series aim to ensure a better understanding of sectoral labour rights and OSH risks relating to domestic work, promoting the access of workers in the sector including refugees to social security and OSH, develop new collaboration and projects, and raise public awareness.

Ms. Ayşe Emel Akalın, ILO Gender and Social Dialogue Officer, stated that legislation specific to OSH in domestic work should be enacted in line with ILO’s Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189); and emphasized that as noted in ILO’s Violence and Harassment Recommendation, 2019 (No. 206), domestic work was one of the sectors where workers were more likely to experience violence and harassment, and appropriate measures should be taken.

Ms. Billur Pınar Eskioğlu, ILO Senior Project Coordinator, underlined the nature of conditions that should be created by saying: “We must ensure employment security and social protection, fair wages, zero tolerance for violence and harassment, clear job descriptions and work hours, rights of association, OSH measures and representation in social dialogue mechanisms for domestic workers as our sine qua non without discrimination and without leaving anyone behind.”

During the workshop, discussions were held and views were elicited of the participants on increase the knowledge and awareness of parties to improve the working and OSH conditions for refugees and Turkish citizens in the domestic work sector. Preparations are underway for drafting a workshop report to reveal the current state of the sector and offer recommendations, soon to be publicised.

The workshop series are organized jointly by the project “Supporting Resilience and Social Cohesion with Decent Livelihood Opportunities” funded by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (USPRM) and the project “More and Better Jobs for Women” funded by Sweden.