Context of our work

Respect is a NON-PROFIT organization. Our work which is focused on Migrant Domestic Workers is undertaken in the context of:

• Rapid globalisation of economies worldwide and its impact on changing labour 
  conditions and precarity of work and livelihoods, labour migration, including the feminisation of migration
• The  “North-South divide” in terms of intensification of unjust and unequal trade, debt and resulting   
  bankruptcy of developing economies of the South, leading to widespread unemployment and increasing out-migration
• Double standards vis a vis labour migration – in Europe, there is significant employment of MDWs in the private 
  household both as ‘live-in” or “live-out” workers, without due acknowledgement and in fact denial of their labour and 
  immigration rights, resulting in the process of many MDWs becoming “undocumented”
• Campaigns in several European countries (UK, Spain, Italy, Greece) by migrant communities, 
  trade unionists and migrant rights advocates have been successful in changing the immigration legislation and 
  current on-going campaigns are putting the issue on the international political agenda.

Migrant Women Domestic Workers in the private household

In Europe, under conditions of globalisation, economic considerations are demanding that family households be supported by two wage-earning adults resulting in increased numbers of European women working outside the home. Likewise, an ageing population is creating a growing demand for care work. Meanwhile, the welfare state is not able to satisfy either the demand for elderly care or childcare in a society where traditional family structures are changing rapidly. In addition, consumerism and the rise of the life-style society require labour to ensure that homes, objects, cars, clothes, gardens and pets etc are well looked after.

The demand for workers in private households either as ‘live-in’ or ‘live-out’ to work with the old and the very young - as carers, cleaners, cooks, housekeepers, gardeners and drivers continues to increase. Likewise more and more families employ domestic workers. Much of this demand is filled by migrant women from the South (Asia, Africa, Latin America) and increasingly by women from former Eastern Europe.

While the majority of migrants employed in the private household are women, there are a growing number of men who are also employed in this work.Many European households are increasingly dependent on such migrant domestic workers and without them their employers could not go out to work in the “productive” economy. In this way, the transnational, globalised economy is brought into the private home, not just in goods consumed there, but at its very core in the organising and delivery of “reproductive” labour. (B. Anderson  2000)

Based on our experience working with MDWs many countries in the EU   domestic work in the private household is not recognised as proper work nor as a category for immigration. Therefore MDWs working in the private household are denied their basic rights and are frequently forced to become undocumented which leads to exclusion in society or being considered invisible.

Under the current immigration regimes in Europe, Domestic work in the private household is the main employment opportunity in the labour market open to migrant women – the other employment possibilities are in prostitution.

The work of MDWs takes place in the private household, a place, which is often exempt from labour laws and where typically trades unions do not have access. MDWs are often exploited by the families they work for, and many face psychological, physical, sexual, and racist harassment from their employers and their employers’ children.

Au Pair Cultural Exchange Scheme

‘Au pair’ schemes are also increasingly being used in European countries including in the Netherlands 
as a way of ensuring that families have access to low cost domestic labour. Constructed as “cultural exchange” and as family, rather than contractual labour, this frequently places young women in situations that are extremely vulnerable to abuse and exploitation.