Hey You, The Word is Domestic Worker. Yes, You!
At one point or another on our life’s journey, we have all required an extra pair of hands to clean up after ourselves. The reasons vary, from busy schedules to not knowing how to do a particular task or being downright lazy. It is allowed, I am the laziest person I know.
Washing pots and doing laundry come different for various households — I mean, to each their own. If you have grown up the African way with a full house, chances are that the work was divided basing on either gender, assumptions of one’s horsepower or their idly running around the compound. In other households, when the work has been worked and hands tire and the pockets can afford, there is an option of hiring someone to do the work. That someone is a domestic worker.
The term domestic worker might be unfamiliar to you but class is now in session and I am here to tell you that the person that does work in and around your home is a domestic worker. Full stop. Not house girl, and definitely not house help, for as long as they are doing domestic work.
The Domestic Workers Convention of 2011 (ILO C189) defines domestic work as work performed in or for a household or households. This work includes cleaning, cooking, laundry, ironing, house and compound maintenance and/or care for children or the elderly. The needs differ. The Convention also mentions that a domestic worker is a person engaged in domestic work, within an employment relationship which can also be on occasional, sporadic and not occupational basis. In short, the Convention recognises them as human beings providing a service!
Why then is it hard for us to recognise domestic work as work, accord domestic workers good working conditions in a favourable environment? Why don’t we accord domestic workers fair pay? How come social protections and labour rights don’t accrue to them? You know, all those nice things that are guaranteed for all the other jobs. Why do we subject domestic workers to mandatory “health tests” before we employ them?
Of course, we know why: patriarchal ideology, that puts men superior to womn that has resulted in the relegation of womn’s work to the private sphere. The assumption that domestic work is biologically determined based on one’s possession of a vagina and should be home based. This way of thinking also dictates that because this kind of work is not carried out publicly, it is not work, but rather duty (eye roll) and hence not valuable and deserves no acknowledgement.
This is why care work which is largely domestic work is unpaid and not recognised as tangible work and why it’s contribution to development is not documented when economists are valuing what contributes to country’s growth. One wonders whether million-dollar deals could have been struck if the men around the conference room table had not had the time to be creative, such precious time afforded them by a womn who had their suits pressed, and breakfast served.
It’s also important for me to define ideology, to bring it home and for you to see its adverse effects. Srilatha Batliwala in All About Power defines ideology as a set of beliefs that frame what we believe is right or wrong, normal or abnormal and natural or unnatural. Most of these beliefs, rules and ideas are passed down from generation to generation through institutions like family, church and societies. They don’t have to be written to be passed on, most in fact are passed on orally. Ever challenged someone about where it is written that it’s a woman’s role to cook or clean the house and their response was “I just know or that’s how it has always been my whole life?” Yeah, that’s ideology.
Let me also draw your attention to how ideology further influences how we live; through the creation of social norms and rules. Here, ideology, in this case patriarchal capitalist ideology is justified and translated into everyday practices, social norms and rules. This is why most of our labour laws and social security protections have for long not extended to domestic work and domestic workers.
It was only early this year, in Uganda, that parliament passed The Employment Amendment Bill 2019 into Law. The bill purposed to amend the Employment Act to operationalize the provisions of Article 40 of the Ugandan Constitution that provides for economic rights to all categories of workers in Uganda. The bill provides for the regulation of employment of domestic workers in Uganda so as to improve their working conditions, to provide for the protection of rights of domestic workers; to provide for the welfare, protection and security of domestic workers, to provide for compulsory registration and licensing of recruitment agencies for domestic workers among others.
It is also these societal norms and rules that make it a laughing topic when a domestic worker is fighting for custody and reports a case of sexual harassment by the boss while the sexual predator goes free. We also saw how many companies, some government agencies and people took out words in the said domestic worker’s narration of her ordeal to advertise and exacerbate victim blaming and turning our attention away from the fact that a woman was sexually harassed by her boss. And yes, harassment remains harassment even when reported after eons. What y’all should be looking at is why it took her so many years to go public.
It is because of how different institutions are set up to fail womn that makes it hard to fight or report instances of abuse and violation of human rights, from how the media reports such cases or lack thereof to songs that normalize these violations. The best song that comes to mind is “House Girl” by the Obsessions and all those stories that womn are told when they consider taking on domestic workers that are womn. How come no one ever holds the men accountable?
Ideology is the most dangerous form of power and as seen in In All About Power, the most difficult to address because we are dealing with power that we can’t see (invisible power). It is therefore important that we, through a radical feminist approach, deconstruct and redefine some of these concepts that have previously been defined from a male perspective and taken to be factual. We must move towards actualizing and providing decent work for domestic workers. We start by changing our language, IT IS WORK, THEY ARE DOMESTIC WORKERS. Then we move towards fair pay and compensation for work done while guaranteeing social security protections to them and not subjecting them to mandatory health checks.
Uganda MUST ratify ILO Convention 190 on Violence and Harassment that extends the scope of protection to workers covering those in both the public and private sphere and also widens the definition of what constitutes the definition of the place of work and for FUCK’S sake stop victim blaming and arrest all the sexual predators that harass domestic workers, yes, I am looking at you Ssematimba.
