Promoting decent work for domestic workers in Zanzibar

ZANZIBAR (ILO News) - The workshop, to be officiated by the Labour Commissioner, Zanzibar, Mr. Simba Kubingwa, brought together participants from the Zanzibar Government, representatives of the Zanzibar Employers Association (ZANEMA) and Zanzibar Workers Union (ZATUC) as well as media practitioners, domestic workers, and members of the police force.

The objective was to sensitize participants on the need to promote decent jobs for domestic workers and to promote women’s rights, as 75% of all domestic workers are women.

The meeting called on all stakeholders to mobilize support for the ratification of Convention No. 189 on decent work for domestic workers.

According to the ILO supported Rapid Empirical Survey of Domestic Workers in United Republic of Tanzania, 2013, 1.2 percent of the labour force are domestic workers in Tanzania mainland and 0.7 percent in Zanzibar.

Further, it indicates that there are 883,779 domestic workers in mainland Tanzania and 203,622 in Zanzibar working within an employment relationship, thus declaring themselves as domestic workers. This represents 5% percent of the total working age population (15 – 64 years) in Tanzania (23.47 million as of 2012 Population and Housing Census).

However, if one considers the people performing domestic tasks, hidden in very informal arrangements, this number increases to 1,728,228 (7 percent of total working age population) reflecting the fact that a large number of people are involved in domestic work without necessarily being recognized as workers and therefore are not able to fully enjoy their labour rights.

Official labour statistics estimate that there are, at the minimum, 5.24 million domestic workers in Africa, accounting for 1.4 per cent of the total employed workforce and 4.9 per cent of paid employment in (2010).

Domestic workers constitute one of the most vulnerable categories of workers. Often being subjected to human rights violations such as physical violence, child labour and forced labour particularly among women and girls. They are also condemned to indecent jobs as they are often not provided with contracts, paid low wages in comparison to the tasks they perform, exposed to unsafe working conditions and inappropriate accommodation.

This led to the adoption of the Domestic Workers Convention No. 189 and Recommendation No. 201 by the ILO’s tripartite constituents during the 100th Session of the International Labour Conference in June 2011, aimed at improving working conditions for domestic workers worldwide.