Decent work for domestic workers: Will 100 million informal workers' rights finally be recognised?
On the 16th June 2011, at the ILO´s international conference, 183 countries signed Convention 189, which offers protection to domestic workers and requires states to take measures to ensure that decent work becomes a reality for all. The convention is historic, as for the first time ILO norms are now reaching the informal sector, and to this end, it provides an ideal platform to advocate for the rights of domestic workers. So far, only four countries have ratified the convention (Uruguay,
Philippines, Mauritius and Bolivia), but CARE is working to ensure that more countries will ratify.
A domestic worker is defined by the convention as any person engaged in domestic work within an employment relationship. Tasks may include cleaning, cooking, gardening, childcare, caring for sick family members, etc. In other words, this is the work that all households bear in order to support their income-generating activities.
Recent estimates from the ILO suggest that in 2010 at least 52.6 million men and women were domestic workers (3.6% of all salaried work), but this figure may, in fact, be as high as 100 million.
More than half of these workers do not have established working hours; more than two out of five lack the right to a legal minimum salary and more than a third have no right to maternity leave. From a human rights perspective, this is unacceptable (ILO, 2013).
Globally, one in thirteen female wage workers is a domestic worker. This is as high as one in four women in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) and almost one in three in the Middle East. In LAC, the great majority of these workers are poor, often rural migrants of indigenous descent. The region is characterised by extremely high levels of income inequality, and ethnic and gender discrimination.
These structural conditions account, in large part, for the high proportion of domestic workers, and without adequate labour legislation and defense of workers' rights, their marginalisation and mistreatment will continue to go unnoticed. The invisibility of this work is testament to the fact that most economies fail to account for non-economic inputs upon which the "productive" economy is based. Failing to acknowledge the real cost of this work and its contribution to society is not only an accounting error, it concretises an erroneous perception of the low value of "women's work," and thus structures a gendered division of labour, where women remain at the bottom.
In Bolivia, estimates suggest that there are 137,000 domestic workers, and nine out of ten of these are women. In-country studies point out that 38% receive less than the legal minimum salary and around 20,000 work more than 60 hours per week, even though the legal limit is 48 hours.
Given that domestic workers tend to work in individual homes they are a highly fragmented labour force, and as such they have significant limitations in terms of organising themselves in representative groups to advocate for their rights. This is not the traditional territory of an INGO, but recognising that measures which help to address the gender division of labour are key to women's empowerment and also respond to wider goals of addressing inequality in middle income countries, since 2010, CARE has been working to strengthen domestic labour organisations in the region to advocate for their rights. Within this framework, ILO Convention 189 was identified as a key target for political advocacy.
As a result of the efforts of the Bolivian Domestic Workers’ Federation (FENATRAHOB), CARE and its partners in the Promotion Committee, on the 20th November 2012 a law was promulgated to ratify
ILO Convention 189.
Key Elements within Convention 189
- Right to the legal minimum salary (if it exists) – article 11
- Monetary payment at regular intervals of no more than a month [2 ] – article 12
- Elimination of all forms of forced and child labour – article 4
- 8 hour work days – article 10
- Right to a period of rest of at least 24 consecutive hours – article 10
- Right to stable employment and a healthy work environment – article 13
- Right to social protection, social security, including maternity leave – article 14
- A written contract – article 8
- Guarantee of adequate grievance mechanisms – article 15

Advocacy Process in Bolivia
Bolivia has a long history of unionism and civil society mobilisation. Since the national revolution of
1952, governments of the right and left alike have had to nego tiate power with strong workers´ unions such as the Bolivian Workers' Central Union (COB) and the Bolivian Mining Corporation (COMIBOL).
Mobilisation reached a peak in the period of "institutional crisis" between 2000 and 2005, where various popular risings impelled the nationalisation of public utilities (e.g. water) and strategic industries (e.g. natural gas). This context allowed social movements to position a number of demands which converted into legislation for informal workers. One of these was Law 2450 for Paid Domestic
Work, which was passed in 2003. And in 2011 to continue in the fight for decent labour conditions,
FENATRAHOB began searching for partners to form a Promotion Committee to approve ILO
Convention 189. This committee was formed by human and women’s rights organisations: CARE,
Oxfam, the Women’s Network for Economic Transformation (REMTE), the Centre for the Promotion of
Women Gregoria Apaza, the Women’s Coordinator, the Solón Foundation, IIPS Platform for Dignified
Work, and the Bolivian Chapter on Human Rights.
FENATRAHOB and the committee designed an action strategy which entailed two main areas of work for the advocacy campaign:

Organisational strengthening: carrying out workshops and seminars to inform domestic workers of their rights and ensure that they know and understand convention 189. These spaces served as fora to convert domestic workers into champions for the cause, and they actively participated in marches and fairs at neighbourhood and district level throughout the country. This also included the provision of technical-legal support to make the convention and the domestic legal framework compatible and thus ensure the convention’s adoption.

Communication and advocacy strategy: Before the ratification, the focus was on publishing summary documents of the proposed legislation to sensitise the public and members of social organisations and during the ratification actions focused on lobbying politicians to back the proposals.
Lobbying was carried out in 4 stages:
Information dissemination: The committee drafted a public position and accompanying document with data on the situation of domestic workers globally, in the region and in Bolivia. Key messages were that:
- Domestic workers have the same rights and obligations as any other worker;
- For the first time, Convention 189 recognises the rights of informal work;
- The Convention recognises the rights of 100 million workers throughout the world;
- 137,000 domestic workers in Bolivia claim the recognition of their rights with the ratification of
Convention 189.
The committee also worked tirelessly with communication media between the 20th March and the
20th November, particularly emphasising that this was an issue of labour informality, one that affects over two thirds of workers in the country. The campaign also managed to take advantage of key windows of opportunity to put out radio spots. These included: Labour Day (1st May), Mother’s Day
(27th May), when meetings were held with ministers and when other countries ratified the convention
(Uruguay – 30th April; Philippines – 5th September; Mauritius – September 2012).
Targeting key actors and processes: The committee met with key actors in the Plurinational
Assembly and revised the conditions for adopting the ILO Convention. It was found that the legislation had got stuck in the Labour Ministry due to incompatibilities with the Bolivian constitution, which led to an apparent impasse.
Identifying and resolving bottlenecks: The committee recognised that problems emanated from three issues: 1) in-kind payment is prohibited by the constitution; 2) inspection of (private) areas of work was prohibited by prior legislation; 3) certain types work agencies were prohibited by national norms. In order to overcome these obstacles, the committee hired legal consultants to write a

document for legal guidance. In order to convince authorities, workshops were carried out with ILO experts, FENATRAHOB, the Labour Ministry, the Promotion Committee and the Chancellery to explain to different commissions and clear up misunderstandings about the convention, and reiterating that the convention could be reconciled with national legislation.
Accompaniment: Critically, the Labour Ministry and other key actors recognised that, given that such a high proportion of domestic workers were indigenous, this was also a matter for indigenous rights.
This was an agenda the ruling government has taken particularly seriously, and partly due to this, the
President recommended that the convention be ratified. The House of Representatives were thus encouraged to vote in favour of the motion, and they voted unanimously on the 23rd August. This was shortly followed by a unanimous vote in the Senate on the 25th October, and finally Law Nº 309 was passed on the 20th November, 2012. Thanks to the support of committee members many domestic workers were able to attend this presentation, having travelled from all over the country.
Lessons Learned
- Work in partnership: Working as part of a committee allowed CARE to take advantage of the expertise of various actors across the country and find complementary actions and efforts over the course of a long advocacy campaign. This existence of the committee and the hiring of a member of staff to coordinate the committee's efforts allowed FENATRAHOB to access to resources, knowledge and support which, at the very least, speeded up the ratification;
- Be sensitive to priorities in the domestic agenda: The committee was sensitive to public perceptions regarding informal labour legislation and indigenous rights issues. The committee capitalised on both of these issues as part of their advocacy actions. Moreover, establishing relations of trust over a sustained period prior to the main advocacy process meant that the committee was also directly responsive to the needs and interests within FENATRAHOB rather than imposing a parallel agenda;
- Ensure quality legal support: Enabling quality legal support was crucial to unblocking a series of legislative bottlenecks within the labour ministry;
- Take advantage of windows of opportunity: Throughout the campaign the committee was able to take advantage of key moments within the domestic calendar and international successes to propel advocacy actions.
Wider Implications
Considering the scale of the issue and its manifestations in the gender division of labour, CARE is committed to fighting the battle to defend domestic workers' rights. CARE UK and the regional gender programme are developing a comparative study regarding the respective ratification process in the
Andean region (Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru). The hope is that the study will provide lessons for countries not only within the region, but also for other countries across the world which are fighting to improve the conditions and protect the rights of domestic workers.
[2 ] Except under three conditions