Students to promote decent work for domestic workers

Screenings of video diaries and photo stories on domestic workers at schools A series of video and photo story screenings on domestic workers and child domestic workers were conducted at various schools and universities in Greater Area of Jakarta, East Java, South Sulawesi, and Lampung since the beginning of this year to April 2016. The screenings have reached around 500 students, ranging from elementary to college students.

The screenings were conducted by the ILO through its Decent Work for Domestic Workers to End Child Domestic Work (PROMOTE) project. Funded by the Department of Labour of the United States of America (USDOL), the Project aims to promote decent work for domestic workers and eliminate child domestic workers.

I encourage my students to make the best use of this activity to develop more concrete activities like research activity, students’ community-engagement programme and volunteerism activities at the domestic workers school."

Dr. Dedi Hermawan, the Head of Public Administration Department, Lampung University

Various questions raised by the students during the screenings. Commitments to be more respectful and to recognize the important contribution of domestic workers were also raised. Elementary students in Tangerang Selatan, for example, promised to respect their domestic workers by providing more help or engaging in a more polite manner.

Meanwhile in Surabaya, some junior high schools recognized the rights of domestic workers by commonly saying: “Domestic workers should be paid based on their works and not being treated as slave. For children who have to engage in domestic work they still have the rights for education and other rights as children.”

Emphasis on the role of the government was discussed by senior high school students in Palopo and Takalar districts of South Sulawesi. They questioned the lack of legal protection for domestic workers and the Law on Domestic Workers. “Domestic workers should have legal protection like other workers as they play an important role in ensuring economic activities of households,” the students said.

Concrete contributions were offered by participating students from the Public Administration Department of Lampung University. These students were encouraged to be involved in the promotion of decent work for domestic workers as voluntary teachers or vocational skills trainers at domestic workers school located in Lampung, managed by DAMAR, a local non-governmental organization deals with domestic worker issues.

Dr. Dedi Hermawan, the Head of Public Administration Department, supported his students to be active in promoting issues related to domestic workers. “I encourage my students to make the best use of this activity to develop more concrete activities like research activity, students’ community-engagement programme and volunteerism activities at the domestic workers school,” he said.

Launched in June 2015, these video diaries and photo stories were facilitated by the ILO-PROMOTE in collaboration with Yayasan Kampung Halaman (YKH) under the programme called “From Youth to Youth Programme” (Program Teman Remaja Teman Setara). The programme aimed to engage youth in two issues: to make the life of domestic workers better and to eliminate child domestic labour.

Produced by 25 youth aged 12-17 years old, selected from hundreds of youth, in Jakarta and Makassar, these videos and photo stories showed the roles of domestic workers in their lives, their daily interaction with their domestic workers and the lives of domestic workers from the eyes of their teenager children. Using their own words and selection of scenes, these videos documented daily lives, plights, journeys and hopes of the domestic workers. These videos consisted of four video diaries and five photo stories with a total duration of 90 minutes.