Unit 2: Gender issues in the world of work
Emerging gender issues in the Asia Pacific region
The girl child labourer
The Girl Child Labourer: ILO-IPEC’s Response
1. The context
2. The ILO-IPEC Strategy
The Girl Child Labourer: ILO-IPEC’s Response
Child domestic work is one of the most common and traditional forms of child labour. The practice, especially in the case of girls, is quite extensive as many cultures continue to view girls’ work in the household as an essential part of their upbringing. Families in urban areas often recruit children from rural villages through family, friends or contacts and while most child domestics come from extremely poor families, many have been abandoned, are orphaned or come from single parent families. Whether or not domestics are a member of the extended family they work for, against the backdrop of the legal sanctity of the private home, a working child identified as a "relative" is invisible and unreachable.
Improved statistical survey methods being pioneered by the ILO indicate how widespread the practice is: in Indonesia, for example, an estimated 5 million children are in domestic service, and 20 per cent of all Brazilian, Colombian and Ecuadorean girls between the ages of 10 and 14 work as domestics. In rural areas the percentages rise, e.g. in Brazil 35.6 per cent of the girls between the ages of 10 and 14 work as domestics, in Colombia it is 32 per cent and in Ecuador the figure is as high as 43.8 per cent. In Togo, a sample survey revealed that 95.6 per cent of the domestics working full-time were aged between 7 and 17 years.
In a socioeconomic environment that has changed considerably, the justification that girls work in preparation for their future roles as mothers and wives, is at great odds with the reality. Children work to supplement the family income, to reduce the economic burden faced by their parents, or in order to survive. In many cases and especially when they have been abandoned or are orphaned, the child domestic is completely dependent on the employing family. The situation often becomes one akin to slavery: children report that they are made to eat leftovers, receive little or no pay, sleep on the floor, endure physical or sexual abuse, are isolated from their immediate family and rarely attend school or play with other children their own age. In Haiti, for example, the use of children as servants, is known as "restavek" in Creole, derived from the French "rester avec" ("to stay with"). The practice of restavek has been openly denounced as slavery in Haiti.
Child domestics usually come from (very) poor families and the overall majority will probably remain poor throughout their lives, i.e. work as a child domestic perpetuates the poverty cycle they are in. Besides the lack of education, it is rare for the child to receive payment directly, if at all, even though as domestic workers, children take on the responsibilities of adult domestic workers. It is possible that wages are paid directly to parents, if contact is maintained, but often the employer views payment as the provision of food, shelter and clothing. Regardless of the type of employment, children confirm that their assigned duties go beyond their normal ability. Working hours are long with no regular days off: a study carried out in Tanzania for example, showed that the average day is 15 hours long for child domestics who do not live with their employers and between 16-18 hours long for those who do. In line with their duties child domestics are expected to rise before the family and to continue "tidying up" after the evening meal. It is also not uncommon for the child domestic to "wait on their employers" through the night-sometimes woken from sleep to attend to one task or another.
ILO-IPEC is committed to activities carried out for this target group, in recognition of the fact that child domestic work is an intolerable form of child labour when:
This group of child workers is the most difficult to reach. There is cultural sensitivity surrounding the belief that girls’ work is an essential part of their upbringing. Also, the dilemma of respecting the privacy of the home makes it difficult to identify and protect those child domestics trapped in exploitative or hazardous working conditions. IPEC experience has shown that it is possible, however, to improve the situation of child domestics with the close involvement of the parties directly involved, i.e.:
Projects typically combine a number of activities to incorporate the three components of direct action; institutional development; and awareness-raising with the aim of prevention, withdrawal and rehabilitation. In addition, the building of alliances and networks with organizations and social partners already active with women domestic workers has proven to be a particularly useful entry point to carry out work for the girl child. Various organizations are concerned with the issue of child domestic workers, including local NGOs, workers’ organizations and women’s associations. Likewise, the UN Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery has decided to specifically put the issue of child domestic workers on the agenda of its next session in 1998.
IPEC programmes at country level
Action programmes at the national level have been supported in 10 countries so far by the ILO’s International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC): Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, the United Republic of Tanzania and Thailand. Five examples have been chosen to illustrate typical activities being carried out with IPEC support.
ILO-IPEC supports an action programme in the municipality of Campos dos Goitacazes: an area in which child workers are recruited for the Rio de Janeiro State. In this pilot project to rehabilitate girls working in domestic service, 50 working girls in the 8-13 age group were:
Convincing employers to release their child domestics to attend centres providing vocational or pre-vocational training for a certain number of hours per day was vital to the success of the project.
The SINAGA Women and Child Labour Resource Centre has been supported by IPEC to provide skills training, basic literacy, legal advice, and to set up a crisis hotline for child domestics. To date 500 children have "graduated" from SINAGA. IPEC also supports the Child Welfare Society of Kenya, in its efforts to provide young women with skills training to upgrade the status of domestic workers in Nairobi to a level where they could earn higher wages and enjoy better working conditions.
PakistanIPEC is supporting the Working Women Association (WWA), which has developed a nonformal and skills development programme for child domestics. Various centres provide:
This NGO is working closely with the community, parents, employers and children in raising their awareness about child labour problems, and more specifically the problems of child domestic work. Various get-togethers are organized where the child’s developmental needs and the importance of education, health and safety are discussed.
A particularly successful project to strengthen initiatives against child trafficking for domestic employment (CTDE) is being carried out by the Visayan Forum with IPEC support. A strategy was developed and carried out simultaneously on three fronts in order to develop support and outreach services in the domestic service. The forum attempts to:
In its first phase, the project provided direct services such as:
Research was carried out to identify gaps in existing legislature for the protection of child domestics and identify areas for future improvement. Active networking with NGOs, governmental organizations and other social partner groups/institutions is continuing in the second phase as possible areas of future action (identified in the first phase) are taken up.
An existing outreach programme to halt violence against women and children has been successfully extended to embrace child domestic workers. The IPEC-supported project is an initiative of the Tanzania Media Women’s Association (TAMWA) in response to a concern about the growing number of girls under 14 years of age who were recruited from rural areas to work as domestics in the cities of Dar es Salaam, Arusha and Mwanya. Located at major crossroads where the girls are recruited, the programme is raising awareness and creating a lobby among parents, institutions responsible for the welfare of children, religious bodies, and women’s groups to combat the growing problem. Girl domestics were also paired with women domestic servants who were able to offer them individual guidance. A multimedia awareness campaign was launched which included broadcasting radio programmes, producing and distributing 5,000 pamphlets and 5,000 cartoon booklets, and developing a video and a play for community theatre. Village-based seminars for parents and community leaders have exposed the harsh realities that can face girl domestics in towns and have raised expectations that there will be a sharp decline in recruitment from the rural areas.
IPEC programmes at subregional level
Building alliances at the subregional or regional level enables the sharing of experience and information but also the coordination of efforts where cross-border migration is taking place. IPEC is planning a subregional project for child domestics in six Francophone African countries-Benin, Burkina Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Mali, Senegal, and Togo-as a follow-up to the subregional conference, which was held in 1995 for ten West African countries.
A regional conference entitled the Asia Consultation on Child Domestic Workers will take place in the Philippines (19-23 November 1997). Representatives from NGOs, employers’ and workers’ groups; as well as government agencies will attend. Participating countries planned to take part are the Philippines, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia, Laos, India, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. If possible, China and Mongolia will also be invited. The Consultation will be organized by the Visayan Forum and guided by an Asian Advisory Committee composed of representatives from the Visayan Forum, ILO-IPEC and Child Workers in Asia (CWA).
IPEC activities at the international level
At the international level, ILO-IPEC has supported the Anti-Slavery International to develop a manual on child domestic workers which will provide guidance for research and action to organizations who would like to start work in this area. ILO-IPEC actively participates in international seminars on domestic workers such as the one recently convened in Leuven, Belgium by World Solidarity, in order to network with NGOs active in this area. ILO-IPEC plans to carry out an evaluation of its action programmes for child domestic workers and will publish subsequent findings of successful strategies and lessons for action.
A new convention prepared for adoption in 1999 will focus on the most intolerable forms of child labour. Child domestic work is implicitly included in this definition although various NGOs and partner agencies at the international and national level are keen to see child domestic work more explicitly mentioned and therefore explicitly covered in the new legal instrument. To this end, the ILO has hosted an NGO Roundtable discussion on "Invisible Child Labour: Girls and Domestic Workers", during the 1997 International Labour Conference. The meeting aimed to:
In the preparations leading to the adoption of the new Convention, ILO-IPEC gives priority to supporting and promoting initiatives to:
[Source: Draft preliminary paper for IPEC's implementation report and comprehensive strategy paper, ILO, 1996.]