Migrant Domestic Workers Research Articles

Activism for Migrant Domestic Workers in South Africa: Tensions in the Framing of Labour Rights

This article explores tensions in the ways in which non-governmental activism, as represented by trade unions and non-governmental organisations (NGOs), frames the concerns of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) living in South Africa. It analyses how seemingly polarised trade unions and NGOs involved in struggles on behalf of MDWs adopt singular discourses about labour rights at varying political moments to achieve their own goals. These singular frames conflate the issues around MDWs and their rights, reducing them to rigid categories of either ‘international migrants’ or ‘domestic workers’. The framing of MDWs’ concerns as international migrants’ rights issues reflects a transnational political approach that migrant-aligned trade unions and NGOs use in order to connect with pre-existing labour movement narratives and debates. This framing must contend with locally aligned trade unions and NGOs who frame international MDWs’ concerns essentially as equal to those of internal MDWs through the mantra ‘a worker is a worker’. This homogenising framing of worker struggles generates deep-seated xenophobic discourses about migrants in South Africa’s labour market which are compatible with a citizenship-based workers’ rights movement and ‘national chauvinism’. Although the mantra ought to allow every worker to stand up for their rights without risking immigration detention or deportation, locally aligned trade unions and NGOs use it to de-exceptionalise international migrants in order to appeal to a local constituency concerned about the economy being ‘overrun’ by international migrants. The article concludes that there is need for internal and international MDWs to organise themselves in ways that recognise their similarities and accommodate their differences.

Migrant workers and human rights: A critical study on India’s COVID-19 lockdown policy

India was one of the leading countries to implement the initial lockdown to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, but still, the lockdown failed and within a few months, India joined the list of countries most affected by the coronavirus epidemic. Why did this transpire? What were the reasons abaft this? Where did the Indian government miss? This manuscript endeavors to study the lacunae in the lockdown plans of the Indian Government and highlights the mistakes committed by the Government which caused the lockdown in India to fail and further exposed the domestic migrant laborers to unbearable difficulties. The manuscript argues that the fundamental and economic rights bestowed upon the domestic migrant workers and other laborers under labor laws and the Indian constitution were breached extensively during the lockdown and that the state’s policies during the lockdown worsened the condition of the domestic migrant workers.

Olivia Killias, Follow the Maid: Domestic Worker Migration In and From Indonesia

Olivia Killias, Follow the Maid: Domestic Worker Migration In and From Indonesia

Core self-evaluation as a mediator for social support and psychological well-being: A study of Indonesian migrant domestic worker candidates

Core self-evaluation as a mediator for social support and psychological well-being: A study of Indonesian migrant domestic worker candidates

COVID-19 and Decent Work: Online Media Coverage on Indonesian Female Migrant Domestic Workers in Malaysia and Taiwan

espanolEntre todas las demas industrias, la propagacion de COVID-19 tambien afecto el trabajo formal de diferentes industrias, incluidos los trabajadores domesticos en las casas de los empleadores. El objetivo principal de este estudio fue analizar el fenomeno de como las trabajadoras domesticas migrantes indonesias de tiempo completo, en Malasia y Taiwan, hicieron frente a las condiciones de empleo inconvenientes durante la pandemia. Este articulo empleo un enfoque cualitativo explicativo. Las fuentes de datos para esta investigacion fueron datos secundarios, que en su mayoria examinaron los datos disponibles en los medios en linea relacionados con cuatro dimensiones del trabajo decente que consisten en 1) seguridad en el empleo (perder un trabajo), 2) proteccion (trabajadores legalmente excluidos / no regulados), 3) vulnerabilidad (maltrato fisico y mental), y 4) ingresos (salario bajo). Los datos seleccionados de los medios en linea nacionales e internacionales se analizaron utilizando el software NVivo 12+ para correlacionar entre el COVID-19 y las condiciones laborales de los trabajadores indonesios en Malasia y Taiwan. Esta investigacion revela que las trabajadoras domesticas migrantes indonesias a tiempo completo, que viven temporalmente en las casas de los empleadores, se han enfrentado a condiciones laborales inconvenientes durante la pandemia. Los hallazgos han argumentado que COVID-19 causo inseguridad laboral al limitar las posibles trabajadoras domesticas extranjeras para encontrar un nuevo trabajo; Ademas, tambien planteo la proteccion insuficiente que resulto en una mayor vulnerabilidad. En terminos de ingresos, COVID-19 tambien contribuyo a la deduccion salarial para las trabajadoras en Malasia y Taiwan. EnglishAmong all other industries, the spread of COVID-19 also affected the formal labor of different industries including domestic workers at employers’ houses. The main purpose of this study was to analyze the phenomenon that how did full-time Indonesian female migrant domestic workers, in Malaysia and Taiwan, coped with inconvenient employment conditions during the pandemic. This article employed an explanatory qualitative approach. The data sources for this research were from secondary data, which mostly examined data available on online media related to four dimensions of decent work consisting of 1) employment security (losing a job), 2) protection (legally excluded/unregulated workers), 3) vulnerability (physical and mental abuse), and 4) income (low salary). The selected data from both national and international online media were analyzed by using NVivo 12+ software to correlate between the COVID-19 and working conditions of the Indonesian workers in Malaysia and Taiwan. This research reveals that full-time Indonesian female migrant domestic workers, temporarily living in employers’ houses, have coped with inconvenient employment conditions during the pandemic. The findings have argued that COVID-19 caused employment insecurity by limiting potential foreign female domestic workers to find a new job; further, it also raised the insufficient protection that resulted into more vulnerability. In terms of income, COVID-19 also contributed to salary deduction for female workers in Malaysia and Taiwan.

The Patterns of Stationary Activities during COVID-19 Distancing Relaxation: The elevated pedestrian network of Mong Kok, Hong Kong

COVID-19 is expected to impact the low-income groups' use of public space and related quality of life beyond the current pandemic outbreak. To what extent may the current pandemic affect the use of public space once some restrictions will be lifted? This study focuses on the migrant domestic workers’ spatio-temporal changes in the patterns of public space use during social distancing relaxation period in Hong Kong. The findings highlight increase of individual leisure activities, decrease of density around informal food-production and of gathering group, comparatively to the pre-pandemic situation. Keywords: Covid-19, public space, migrant domestic workers, behavioural mapping eISSN: 2398-4287© 2020. The Authors. Published for AMER ABRA cE-Bs by e-International Publishing House, Ltd., UK. This is an open access article under the CC BYNC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Peer–review under responsibility of AMER (Association of Malaysian Environment-Behaviour Researchers), ABRA (Association of Behavioural Researchers on Asians) and cE-Bs (Centre for Environment-Behaviour Studies), Faculty of Architecture, Planning & Surveying, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21834/ebpj.v5i15.2461.

The “Migration” of Terrorist Actors in Indonesia: From Male-Dominated Terrorist to the Emergence of Female Terrorist Migrant Domestic Workers

The ISIS group’s declaration in 2014, has inspired female extremists from various countries to join the terrorist group. At the end of 2016, two women were arrested by the Indonesian police for planning terror attacks in two different places. Both are former migrant domestic workers who returned from Hong Kong. This article investigates why women join terrorist groups, why male-dominated terrorist groups recruit women and what makes female migrant domestic workers who return to Indonesia as extremists willing to make a significant contribution to the terrorism movement in Indonesia. This research’s data collection technique is qualitative data collection, and document-based research through literature studies. This article utilizes Quintan Wiktorowicz’s three radicalisation concept phases: cognitive opening, religious seeking and socialisation. This study found that at least four reasons women become extremists, namely personal complaints, influence from family, relatives or lovers, ideological perceptions, and media use, facilitate the radicalisation process. Furthermore, strategic interests seem to be the answer to why terror groups involve women to achieve their goals. The acceptance of terrorist groups to involve women can be the reason why women migrant domestic workers are willing to make an immense contribution to terrorist groups. Their enthusiasm, financial capacity and international experience are expected to strengthen the terror movement in Indonesia. Both create a “mutually reinforcing” relationship that benefits both parties. Further research is needed with a sample of ordinary female extremists outside migrant domestic workers as a comparison to examine women’s motivations and group decisions to include these women in terrorist activities.

Productive and deferential bodies: the experiences of Indonesian domestic workers in Malaysia

This article investigates the construction of the bodies of live-in Indonesian domestic workers in their employers’ homes in Malaysia. Through an analysis of everyday practices at the micro level, this study suggests that the spatiality of domestic work is central to the bodily construction of migrant workers. Surveillance and mobility restrictions in the employer’s home condition the worker’s body to be constantly productive. The body, at the same time, is inscribed with gender, racial and class differences. It is marked as deferential as a result of its proximity to the employer’s body in the enclosed space of the home. These practices take place at home, but they draw on practices by the host state and recruitment agencies. This suggests that bodily construction at the household level is inherently linked to national and global processes. Migrant domestic workers nevertheless may find themselves either adopting these constructions through self-discipline or resisting them to a limited extent. In doing so, the workers’ bodily performances bring the home into being as a performative space of power.

Follow the maid: Domestic worker migration in and from Indonesia, by Olivia Killias

Follow the maid: Domestic worker migration in and from Indonesia, by Olivia Killias

Caring for Labor History

This essay charts how the author’s interest in labor history and the history of care work were inspired by her own family history of migrations from Puerto Rico to the United States. It considers how her grandmother’s stories about being a child needle worker in Puerto Rico and a migrant domestic worker in New York led her to think critically about the connections and overlap between the home and workplace in the lives of Puerto Rican women. As a student, investigating her personal history led her to discover a rich tradition of Puerto Rican feminist labor history that raised questions about reproductive politics and caring labor that remain pressing in our contemporary moment.

Domestic Workers — Migrant Workers

The article analyzes the main characteristics of the status of domestic migrant workers in Russia. It is stated that migrant domestic workers are a very vulnerable category of migrant workers, which is due to a number of reasons, including the peculiarities of the work performed. However, it is not easy for employers of such workers — the rules for formalizing relations are quite difficult for individuals who decide to invite a nanny, a governor or a cook from another country

From Social Reproduction Theory Perspective Georgian Migrant Domestic Workers in Unye/ORDU | Toplumsal Yeniden Üretim Teorisi Perspektifinden Unye/Ordu’da Gürcü Göçmen Ev-işçileri

Historically, capitalist social production and reproduction relations have close interaction with patriarchal gender hierarchies. This interaction has been transformed dramatically. Especially, the interaction between patriarchal gender roles and capitalist reproduction relations has been examined and debated by the distinct branches of feminist movement. In this paper, I will investigate this interaction via activities of migrant women domestic workers in Turkey which, I believe, represent essential features of the recent global dynamics of capitalism such as informalization, feminization of un/under-paid work force, feminization of immigration, globalization of domestic works. I will introduce the results of my field research about life and working conditions among migrant domestic workers in Ünye, Ordu Province of Turkey, in the Black Sea region. I have conducted semi-structured, face to face interviews with a certain number of Georgian migrant women. This method is consistent with many of the qualitative approaches pioneered and adopted by feminist researchers.

Organising Work as Migrant Domestic Workers and Construction Workers in the National Capital Region of India

Exodus of migrant workers from different cities in India has brought the issues of migrant workers into light. The discourse in the public domain mainly focusses on male workers where women are more portrayed as mothers. Gender studies scholars (Mazumdar et al. 2013) have always raised concerns on the overemphasis of the social angle of women’s migration. This paper brings forth how migrant workers, all women, had organised their productive-reproductive continuum in Delhi and Gurugram as construction workers and domestic workers. They had come to the National Capital Region (NCR) in search of livelihoods. Their work continuum is discussed in the backdrop of the economic distress that led to migration, the working conditions (wages and leaves) and social security provisions (maternity benefits and childcare) they were entitled to as workers in the cities. The objective of the paper is to understand the structures that influenced the organisation of productive-reproductive continuum of migrant informal sector women workers and also to demonstrate the processes of multiple marginalisation.

Domestic migrant workers in India returning to their homes: emerging socioeconomic and health challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Domestic migrant workers were stranded far from home when India declared nationwide lockdown to combat the pandemic of novel coronavirus (COVID-19). A large number of these workers were left with no economic support, no food and in many cases nowhere to live. The pandemic posed a serious health threat to these people, and the socioeconomic insecurity pushed them towards the edge of sustainability. Many of the migrants began walking home and accepted an uncertain fate if they could not return back home. The Government of India initiated efforts to provide transport support with special train services from the beginning of May 2020. While the migrants have started to return to their villages and towns, the states are facing the challenges of preventing the spread of COVID-19. The point-of-entry screening, quarantine and isolation facilities have increased substantially in capacity, although the quality of care remains a point of concern. Back at their homes, the migrants are enduring stigma, discrimination and poor social security. In order to avert the brewing humanitarian crisis, empathetic administration combined with political will is a must. Prudent, evidence-based decision-making in the economic and health sectors is also necessary.

Structural validation of The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) among Filipina and Indonesian female migrant domestic workers in Macao: STRUCTURAL VALIDATION OF PHQ-9

Within diverse global populations, validated tools are needed to assess common mental disorders. The Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) is one of the most commonly used depression screeners. However, the PHQ-9 has not been structurally validated among female migrant domestic workers (MDWs). Female MDWs constitute a population numbering 11.5 million, and commonly report depression. This study aimed to structurally validate the PHQ-9 among Filipina and Indonesian female MDWs in Macao Special Administrative Region of China. Participants were recruited using respondent driven sampling. Participants were adult female MDWs from The Philippines (N=1375) or Indonesia (N=367) and legally working in Macao. We used confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test five structural models of depression using all PHQ-9 items with the Filipina and Indonesian samples. We applied multi-group CFA to test measurement invariance across samples. A two-factor (cognitive/affective, somatic) model yielded the best fit within both samples, and the multi-group CFA demonstrated invariance across samples. The two-factor model best represents the factor structure of the PHQ-9 among Filipina and Indonesian female MDWs.

Debate on Follow the maid: Domestic worker migration in and from Indonesia, by Olivia Killias, Marina de Regt, Johan Lindquist, and Rebecca Elmhirst

Debate on Follow the maid: Domestic worker migration in and from Indonesia, by Olivia Killias, Marina de Regt, Johan Lindquist, and Rebecca Elmhirst

Invisible in homes, visible in cities: visibility and dis/empowerment in paid domestic work in London

This paper draws on ethnographic research on the experience of Slovak au pairs living and working in the London area. It attempts to connect three areas: theories related to visibility and social recognition, debates on cities as public places enabling political action, and paid domestic work. Focusing on a specific group of migrant domestic workers, I analyze how various aspects of being visible or invisible relate to the empowerment, disempowerment, and resistance of paid domestic workers. I demonstrate that host families invisibilize au pairs and their work in order to both diminish their role in children’s lives and secure the myth of the exclusivity of the nuclear family. Au pairs counter this process of invisibilization by making themselves visible in their rooms and in the city. I interpret au pairs’ usage of visibility and invisibility as enabling au pairs subtle gestures of resistance without openly challenging the inequalities of the au pair scheme.

Embodied Placemaking: Filipina Migrant Domestic Workers’ Neighborhood in Beirut

Based on a larger ethnographic project that investigates the spatial impact of the kafala (sponsorship) system on the access and mobility of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) in Beirut, Lebanon, this paper focuses on embodiment and the placemaking of Filipina MDWs in the city. From a theoretical lens that is placed at the intersection between the anthropology of space and place and feminist geography, I argue that the ways in which the precarious and marginalized community of Filipinas creatively makes place for themselves in the city despite spatial exclusion, labor restrictions, and employers’ control, ascribe new meanings to these already existing productions of Beiruti space. The argument is delivered through a spatial ethnographic analysis based on two months of participant observation and semi-structured interviews.

Collective Silence and Accountability for Sexual Harassment in Lebanon

This article aims to analyse law and policy on sexual harassment in Lebanon, particularly how meaningful change can be achieved for women living there who face increased vulnerability due to their status as refugees and migrant domestic workers. Drawing on qualitative methods and documentary analysis, the article argues that sexual harassment legislation and a multisectoral change in attitudes is required for sexual harassment accountability to become a reality in Lebanon. While acknowledging Lebanese civil society’s significant efforts on collectively pushing legislation and awareness-building, predating the global #MeToo movement, increased efforts must be made on the prevention side, particularly for isolated, marginalised groups such as refugees and migrant domestic workers.

Modern Heroes, Modern Slaves? Listening to migrant domestic workers’ everyday temporalities

This essay draws on multi-sited, performance art-led research with Filipinx migrant domestic workers in the UK and Lebanon. It explores a dichotomy at work in the portrayal of some workers as bagong bayani or ‘modern heroes’—a phrase coined by then Philippine president Corazon Aquino—and as ‘modern slaves’, a term more recently associated with the humanitarian and state processing of survivors of human trafficking and labour abuse. Simultaneously victimising and venerating workers, I argue that both terms spectacularise experiences of migrant domestic work, untethering it from lived, material conditions. In so doing, the everyday nature of exploitation and abuse encountered by many migrant domestic workers is obscured, as well as the everyday expertise that enables them to evade, de-escalate, and survive it. Through making collaborative soundwalks with migrant domestic workers—a creative form similar to site-specific audio guides—my research identifies ways in which performance methodologies can be attentive to the specific temporalities of their lived experiences and to their decisions about self-representation.