Migrant Women Domestic Workers Research Articles

Beyond Kafala! Employers’ discriminatory attitudes and violations of the rights and freedoms of women migrant domestic workers in Lebanon

Abstract Women migrant domestic workers (WMDWs) constitute 7.7 per cent of migrant workers worldwide, of whom more than a quarter work in the Arab region under the exploitative Kafala, system. In this article, we center employers as key actors in the making of the discursive meaning of Kafala. Utilizing data from a mixed-methods study on Lebanese employers of live-in WMDWs, we investigate whether practices that violate the rights and freedoms of workers are determined by the employers’ knowledge of what Kafala and local legal obligations entail versus other factors. The findings reveal that, although knowledge of legal obligations increases compliance with basic worker rights, employers shape the meaning of Kafala through practices that resonate with their discriminatory attitudes and financial interests. Thus, whilst benefit may accrue from enhancing employers’ knowledge of local legal obligations, only anti-racism advocacy that addresses deep-seated discriminatory attitudes and mobilizes employer morality would improve the rights and freedoms of WMDWs. The article does not abrogate Kafala as an exploitative system but calls for centering employers who, through their daily practices, contribute to shaping its meaning and reinforcing its power.

Overlooked Realities: Reimagining "Home" and "House" Among Women Domestic Workers in India.

Domestic workers (DWs) are integral to the daily lives of a significant portion of India's urban population, with an estimated 3.9 million individuals employed in domestic roles in urban areas, mostly women. This article explores the perceptions of home, house, and safe spaces among migrant women DWs in Delhi. Through in-depth interviews, it delves into their lived experiences as both breadwinners and survivors of domestic violence, revealing that (a) house and home are differently conceptualized by these workers; (b) their homes are perceived as warzones, reinforcing patriarchy through incidents of domestic violence and gendered subordination; and (c) women DWs navigate the complexities of conflicting identities as breadwinners and survivors within unequal gendered relationships.

When the Home Is Also the Workplace: Women migrant domestic workers’ experiences with the ‘live-in’ policy in Singapore and Hong Kong

This article examines the link between the mandatory live-in policy and the unsafe working and living conditions of women migrant domestic workers. This policy has been rationalised on the principles of the inviolability of the private home and challenges around regulating and enforcing labour protections in the home-workplace but has, in practice, increased migrant domestic workers’ precarity and exploitation. Drawing on empirical research in Singapore and Hong Kong, the article demonstrates how the live-in policy operates in tandem with inadequate labour and migration regulations to produce a situation where poor working and living conditions are an enduring part of workers’ employment and everyday lives. It contributes to research that has highlighted the gendered dynamics and exclusionary bordering practices that shape waged domestic labour, and considers the implications this may have for the well-being and security of women migrant domestic workers.

Negotiating social location as a workplace strategy: Gorkhali women migrant domestic workers and South Asian employers in Bangkok

ABSTRACT Social location involves multiple axes of gender, work, ethnicity, migration status, age and access to networks; and can be manipulated when the individual determines to change it. These axes of differentiation interact with social hierarchies in different ways to change a person’s social location. Using the social location and intersectionality frameworks, this paper analyses the choices and strategies used by Burmese Gorkha migrant domestic workers in Thailand to manage their workplace relationships. Migrant domestic workers are in a precarious status because of their legal status as migrants and because of the employment relations with their employers. The study finds that Gorkhali migrant workers chose their employers so that they are able to negotiate using their ethnic status. By foregrounding their ethnicity, they are able to obtain certain social location vis-à-vis their employers. However, this strategy can be used only for a certain group of employers and therefore, Burmese Gorkha migrant domestic workers choose to work with such employers even when the pay is lower than that of other groups of employers. Gorkhali migrant domestic workers’ engagements and interactions with their employers are shaped by economic, ethnic and gendered power relations.

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.

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.

The legal protection of women migrant domestic workers from the Philippines and Sri Lanka: an intersectional rights-based approach

Women migrants’ position in the global labour market is constrained by gender and racial divisions of labour, and the work they are offered is often insecure, low-paid and concentrated in feminised sectors of the economy, such as domestic work. It is not only women who predominantly perform domestic work, but also women of a certain race, ethnicity, socio-economic class and nationality. This article adopts an intersectional rights-based lens to examine how selected policies and regulations in the Philippines and Sri Lanka are discriminating against, and creating conditions for the systematic exploitation of, women migrant domestic workers positioned at the intersection of multiple converging identities.

The work-life experiences of an invisible workforce

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the work-life (WL) experiences of live-in women migrant domestic workers (MDWs), who represent a significant proportion of migrant workers globally. MDWs play a key role in enabling the work-life balance (WLB) of others, namely the middle-class households that employ them. Yet, their experiences have largely been invisible in mainstream WL literature. The authors draw on an intersectional approach to frame the WL experiences of this marginalized group of women at the intersection of being secondary labour segment workers, with significant legal and employment restrictions as migrant workers, who work and live in the same place as their employers. Design/methodology/approach Qualitative interviews were conducted with 13 women MDWs from Indonesia and the Philippines working in Malaysia. The women talked about the meaning of work as MDWs, how they maintain familial connections whilst working abroad, and how they negotiate their WLB as live-in workers. Thematic analysis of the interviews focused on the intersection of the women’s multiple dimensions of disadvantage, including gender, class and temporary migrant-foreigner status, in shaping their accounts of the WL interface. Findings Three thematic narratives highlight that any semblance of WLB in the MDWs’ lived experience has given way to the needs of their employers and to the imperative to earn an income for their families back home. The themes are: working as MDWs enables the women and their families back home to have a life; the co-existence of WL boundary segmentation and integration in relation to “real” and “temporary” families; and the notion of WLB being centred around the women’s ability to fulfil their multiple duties as MDWs and absent mothers/sisters/daughters. Research limitations/implications The study is based on a small sample of live-in women MDWs in Malaysia, intended to promote typically excluded voices and not to provide generalizable findings. Accessing potential participants was a considerable challenge, given the vulnerable positions of women MDWs and the invisible nature of their work. Practical implications Future research should adopt a multi-stakeholder approach to studying the WL experiences of women MDWs. In particular, links with non-governmental organizations who work directly with women MDWs should be established as a way of improving future participant access. Social implications The study underscores the existence of policies and regulations that tolerate and uphold social inequalities that benefit primary labour segment workers to the detriment of secondary labour segment workers, including women MDWs. Originality/value Extant WL literature is dominated by the experiences of “the ideal work-life balancers”, who tend to be white middle-class women, engaged in professional work. This study offers original contribution by giving voice to a taken-for-granted group of women migrant workers who make other people’s WLB possible. Moreover, the study challenges WL research by underscoring the power inequities that shape the participants’ marginal and disadvantaged lived experience of work, life, family and WLB.

State-Sanctioned Structural Violence: Women Migrant Domestic Workers in the Philippines and Sri Lanka.

Adopting a structural violence approach, this article examines how the failure to implement protective rights-based migration policies by the governments in the Philippines and Sri Lanka creates the conditions for the systematic exploitation of women migrant domestic workers by recruitment agencies and employers. Fieldwork conducted in 2018 with advocacy groups, government agencies, and international organizations in the Philippines, Sri Lanka, and Hong Kong illustrates how both countries are prioritizing the promotion of overseas employment and commodification of labor above the protection of the rights of their women domestic workers under domestic and international law.

Making Rights Matter: The Potential Use and Viability of Digital Arbitration as a Dispute Resolution Mechanism for Employment Contracts of Women Migrant Domestic Workers

This paper proposes digital arbitration as a possible dispute resolution mechanism for providing better access to justice and rule of law for women migrant domestic workers, in the context of enforcing their employment contracts. It is thought best that the proposed mechanism should be made operative within the framework of an international digital platform of justice, established under the auspices of an internationally recognized body, and for the particular purpose of administering justice for women migrant domestic workers and their employers. Modern technology and telecommunication networks are able to increase the speed of operations and reduce costs. Given that women migrant domestic workers lack the finances to pursue international arbitration, it is thought that the use of technology would be of assistance in cutting costs of litigation and making arbitration an affordable means of dispute resolution. It must be noted however, that digital arbitration is only viewed as a single possibility for providing better access to justice and rule of law for women migrant domestic workers and therefore it cannot be considered as a total solution for resolving problems on access to justice and rule of law.

Challenging knowledge production, twice: Feminist participatory action research and migrant women activism

IntroductionUnder the scope of the Global Alliance Against the Trafficking of Women's (GAATW) project Safe and Fair Migration from a Feminist Perspective, Anti-Racism Movement (ARM) in Lebanon is conducting a feminist participatory action research (FPAR) project with Mesewat, a group of Ethiopian activist migrant workers, the majority of whom are women migrant domestic workers (MDWs).Mesewat’s work varies in its scope: they do casework, particularly around medical, financial, and shelter needs; they lobby the Ethiopian state and consulate to address the violations they are experiencing; they c

Undervalued and Overrepresented: Voices of Migrant Domestic Workers in India

In India and globally, domestic work continues to be one of the professions that is rooted in the history of colonialism, slavery, and servitude due to lack of workplace regulation and one-on-one power negotiation between the employer and the worker. Thousands of households in urban India are dependent upon domestic workers for tasks such as cooking, cleaning, washing, ironing, and caregiving. This profession predominantly consists of women from low socioeconomic families, and scheduled caste and tribe. Additionally, due to urbanization and a decline in the agricultural industry, majority of the domestic workers have migrated from various parts of the country due to poverty. The migrant women domestic workers (MWDWs) are often faced with exploitative conditions at the workplace and their social environment. Previous studies and policy initiatives have focused on workplace exploitation. However, there are challenges that go beyond the confines of the employer’s house that adversely impact the well-being of the MWDW. Using a social work lens that emphasizes the impact of the sociocultural, and economic environment on an individual’s wellbeing, the current study aims to go beyond the direct employer–employee relationship. This study analyses data from 91 MWDWs from 6 states in India—(i) Bihar, (ii) Jharkhand, (iii) Karnataka, (iv) Madhya Pradesh, (v) Odisha, and (vi) Uttar Pradesh. The results of the study contribute towards (i) providing an insight on the everyday hardships of the MWDW (ii) emphasizing the need to diversify the discourse of domestic workers’ rights and well-being to include the role of the family, community, state, and national level infrastructure, and (iii) recommending alternative approaches for securing decent work and overall well-being that can supplement government legislation.

Justifying abuse of women migrant domestic workers in Lebanon: the opinion of recruitment agencies

ObjectiveGender-based violence against women migrant domestic workers (WMDW) is a serious public health concern in the Middle East region. The current study is the first to explore abuse of WMDW as perceived by recruitment agency managers. MethodA qualitative study was conducted using 42 personal semi-structural interviews with agency managers in Lebanon. The interview guidelines were designed based on the standards set by the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention No. 189. The information was transcribed in Arabic, and data was analyzed using thematic analysis. ResultsThe interviewees believe that WMDW are subject to abusive practices that represent various violations of the ILO Convention No. 189, including harassment and violence, compulsory labour, misinformation about conditions of employment, denial of periods of rest and restriction of movement and travel documents. In many situations, the interviewees justified some of these practices as being necessary to protect their business and to protect the workers. ConclusionThe results of this study have several policy implications for the protection of WMDW against abuse.

Work Condition, Gender Relation And Violence Against Women Migrant Domestic Workers

The research aims to analyze the social conditions of working women migrant domestic workers, gender relations in their home and workplace, and to describe the violence experienced by women migrant domestic workers. The research method used is case study in two villages, namely village of Majangtengah Malang Regency and village of Junjung Tulungagung Regency as sender of migrant worker. The research informants are migrant workers who have returned to their home villages and migrant families who are working overseas. This study uses a qualitative approach through in-depth study of 32 migrant workers. Data analysis technique is descriptive qualitative. Research results show that women migrant workers are encouraged to work away from the village and families by socioeconomic factors. They have different working conditions in the destination country. The employer factors are crucial to urge the success of the migrant workers. They contribute economically to households and surrounding communities, but this work is very at risk of violence. Violence can occur from departure to destination country. Therefore, protection of women migrant workers is very important.

Gender- and social class-based transnationalism of migrant Filipinas in binational unions

ABSTRACTEmpirical studies of Filipinos in France focus on migrant women domestic workers and consequently tend to overlook other components of the Filipino population in this country. Departing from these previous studies, I examine the case of migrant Filipinas in binational unions, that is, relationships based on marriage or cohabitation (legally registered or not) with a non-Filipino partner. Drawing from semi-structured interviews and informal conversations, this article demonstrates the intersectionality of gender and social class in the way these migrants maintain transnational familial ties. Influenced by the gender norms and ideology in the Philippines, migrant Filipinas strive to be ‘good mothers’ and/or ‘dutiful daughters’. However, they do so differently depending on their social class belonging and on their family situation: migrants of modest social class background have usually children from previous relationships left under the care of their kin in the Philippines and feel compelled to send remittances and maintain regular communication with their family back home, whereas women of upper social class origin are neither obliged nor asked to do so. However, they send gifts and financial assistance voluntarily, pay frequent visits to their natal family and make some kin visit them in France.

Hubungan Prestasi Kerja Pembantu Rumah Tangga, Kepuasan Majikan, Kemampuan Negosiasi dan Kerentanan Migran Wanita Pembantu Rumah Tangga Indonesia di Negara Tujuan (Studi Kasus di Wilayah Lembah Klang Selangor Malaysia)

T his study examines the link between satisfaction and the ability of employers bargaining / negotiating with vulnerability migrant women domestic workers in the workplace employer . The study was conducted in Lembah Kelang Selangor Malaysia region, with a sample of 150 respondent employers who employ migrant female domestic workers from Indonesia and 150 female migrant domestic workers from Indonesia who was working in Malaysia. The results show significant relationship between work performance and ability to satisfy employers' bargaining/negotiating PRT. However, a negative relationship shows between satisfaction and the ability of employers bargaining / negotiating with vulnerability migrant women domestic workers in the workplace employer. A n attempt to reduce vulnerability employers of domestic workers in the workplace is not enough with strengthening the legal and political protection. Important and strategic factor carried forward with efforts to increase domestic job performance itself

El Convenio 189 de la OIT sobre el Trabajo Decente para las Trabajadoras y los Trabajadores Domésticos: antecedentes y efectos respecto de las trabajadoras domésticas migrantes

This article examines the adoption of ILO Convention 189 on domestic workers adopted in 2011, focusing on the way in which this new framework can affect the lives of migrant women who are domestic workers. The article first overviews domestic work, particularly the situation of female Latin American domestic workers. Thereafter follows an examination of the international law prior to Convention 189 –both in the field of international labor law and in the field of international human rights law– that allowed for the protection of these workers but that did not take into account the specifics of domestic work. Finally, the article examines some of Convention 189’s norms that allow for the targeted protection of this vulnerable group. The article concludes that this Convention moves forward in the protection of the rights of migrant women domestic workers and thus demonstrates the need for States to ratify this new international treaty.

ILO Convention 189 concerning Decent Work for Domestic Workers: background and effects on migrant women

This article examines the adoption of ILO Convention 189 on domestic workers adopted in 2011, focusing on the way in which this new framework can affect the lives of migrant women who are domestic workers. The article first overviews domestic work, particularly the situation of female Latin American domestic workers. Thereafter follows an examination of the international law prior to Convention 189 –both in the field of international labor law and in the field of international human rights law– that allowed for the protection of these workers but that did not take into account the specifics of domestic work. Finally, the article examines some of Convention 189’s norms that allow for the targeted protection of this vulnerable group. The article concludes that this Convention moves forward in the protection of the rights of migrant women domestic workers and thus demonstrates the need for States to ratify this new international treaty.

‘For Some Reason, I'm Just Tired’: Women Domestic Workers Persisting in Community-Based Programmes

A study of women migrant domestic workers in the USA and their reasons for participating and persisting in community-based literacy and ESOL programmes is presented. Case studies and themes were developed about the women's experiences of work life and how it connected to their programme participation. The findings revealed that the women had health problems that were related to their work, and they participated in programmes in order to better understand them. The women also experienced considerable isolation at work, and attended their programmes in order to socialise and meet other women like themselves. Additionally, the women wanted to learn how to better negotiate workplace texts, and, eventually, use their new-found knowledge and education to move into other occupations. The article ends with implications for practice and policy.

Employers of migrant women domestic workers from Albania and Ukraine.

Employers of migrant women domestic workers from Albania and Ukraine.