By Ruth Castel-Branco
Albertina has been a leader in the struggle for domestic worker justice in Maputo, Mozambique. She is one of at least 37,000 domestic workers working in and around Mozambique’s capital.
Nicknamed the "patience industry" by domestic workers, it is characterized by low wages, long hours and rigorous schedules, humiliating tasks, unhealthy working conditions and vulnerability to abuse. Albertina finds this paradoxical given the intimate nature of the profession.
Based on personal testimonies from Bolivia, the State of New York, USA, the Philippines and South Africa, the ITUC-UN Women 
This report presents the findings of a multi-country study into the psychosocial wellbeing of child domestic workers (CDWs) across three continents. The study was conducted in Peru, Costa Rica, Togo, Tanzania, India and Philippines during 2009 with around 3,000 children, mostly between the ages of 10 and 17; half of whom work as paid or unpaid domestic workers. This study makes an important contribution to our understanding of child domestic work and provides important indicators in terms of the situation and circumstances that most affect these child workers as well as the aspects of their life that provide resilience and contribute to their wellbeing in a positive way.
In Cambodia, like in most societies, the task of cleaning, cooking and taking care of the well-being of family members have long been assigned to women. This household work, considered as a typical women‟s occupation, is often not perceived as “employment”. This study and its key findings intend to bring greater attention to the situation of domestic workers in Cambodia and to facilitate the development of strategies and practical measures for promoting their rights and employment and working conditions in the country.
This publication sheds light on the magnitude of domestic work, a sector often “invisible” behind the doors of private households and unprotected by national legislation.
In recent years, there has been increased recognition of the presence of human trafficking in Singapore. Conducted by Humanitarian Organization of Migration Economics (HOME), this study was commissioned in order to...
The main purpose of "Working with migrant domestic workers in Lebanon (1980s-2012): A mapping of NGO services" is to explore how NGO agendas in the migrant domestic workers (MDWs) subfield have progressed since the deliberations of the National Steering Committee on Women Migrant Domestic Workers. It provides an overview of the work of NGOs with MDWs in Lebanon and traces the history of NGO involvement with MDWs since the early 1980s to explore the approaches underlying NGO interventions and partnerships.
Domestic workers care for the things we value most — our homes, children and elderly — but Home Economics: The Invisible and Unregulated World of Domestic Work reveals that the United States does not care for our domestic workers.
The 2013 World Development Report recognizes and focuses on employment as the center of economic development. The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary analysis of five case studies prepared for the 2013 WDR team that illustrate why and how the representative voice and economic rights of urban informal workers should be promoted.
This guide, published by ILO, is a practical tool for those involved in national legislative processes and in the design of labour laws, including government officials and representatives of workers’ and employers’ organizations.