ILO to delebrate on rights of domstic workers

Daily Graphic (pg11) Sat. April 10/10

Story: Rebecca Quaicoe-Duho
DOMESTIC workers, or domestic assistants render invaluable services in most homes to support families, mostly in the working class. They are referred to as domestic assistants when they are aged between 15 and 17, and domestic workers when they are above 18 years. They include house boys, gardeners, caretakers, child minders, cooks and drivers among others.
According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO), although they help in the development of a country’s economy since they perform duties which otherwise should have been performed by their employers who are mostly employees and therefore, do not have the time to perform those chores, domestic assistants or domestic workers cnstitute a group of neglected people. This is because issues relating to their rghts addressed.
To discuss pertinent issues relating to the rights of domestic workers which is crucial to their survival and development, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) will in June this year hold a meeting on the issue.
At the forthcoming ILO meeting, delegates will debate on a draft convention on domestic workers, which when adopted, will be binding on all 182 member states of the ILO across the world.
An official from ILO-Ghana, Ms Adwoa Sekyi at an advocacy forum organised by LAWA-Ghana with support from the African Women’s Development Fund (AWDF) in Accra, who briefed the gathering on the proposed ILO Convention for Domestic Workers and the Women’s Movement, said the adoption of the convention has become imperative, as most laws do not protect the rights of domestic workers in most countries.
The forum will also aim at giving the participants an overview of a draft Domestic Workers’ Regulation of 2007, which is being spearheaded by LAWA-Ghana, and to evaluate a monitoring instrument which has been instituted to access a pilot survey being conducted on some domestic workers and their employers in Accra and Kumasi.
According to Ms Sekyi, most domestic workers were abused or maltreated while others were not paid adequately for the services that they rendered.
A Legal Practitioner, Ms Fidnette Adjatey, who is also a member of LAWA-Ghana gave an overview of the Draft Domestic Workers’ Regulation and said the aim of the organisation was to ensure that the regulation becomes a Legislative Instrument (LI), under the country’s Labour Act.
She said the present act does not provide enough protection to this group of people and the aim of the regulation was to promote their human right.
She said the regulation, which is in seven parts, talks about the purpose and definition of who a domestic worker or assistant is , employment contracts, wages and benefits, maximum hours of work; rest periods and leave, rights at work and enforcement.
Ms Adjetey said when the LI comes into being, it will effectuate the national policies of protecting workers and encourage development of the nation through development of workers.
The LI she said, will also help to formalise the employment relationship between domestic workers and their employers so as to begin the process of professionalising the operations of domestic workers and ensuring that they were not exploited.
The purpose of adopting the LI, she said, was also to recognise the important role of domestic workers to almost every household in the country.
Also,she said the LI would ensure that domestic work was recognised as an honourable and adequately remunerated profession so that more young people can take it up as a profession to help reduce the number of youth on the street.
A Development Consultant, Mr Samuel Asah who gave an overview of the instrument used in monitoring the pilot project, said domestic work was largely an urban phenomenon which has been largely promoted by urbanisation.
He said the issue of rural-urban migration has led to the situation where young people from rural areas moved to the urban centres in seach of non-existence jobs resulting in most of them offering cheap labour in most homes without contract or proper remuneration.
He said the issue of domestic work was an old phenomenon which employs a huge number of people and called for the necessary legislation to help regulate it.
The Executive Director of LAWA-Ghana, Mrs Barbara Ayensu in an address said the draft regulation was the result of a fact finding research organised in March 2003 by LAWA-Ghana, in partnership with the Georgetown University, USA, with the aim to look into the activities of people in that field.
He said the result of the research called for legal reforms which included the passage of a regulation on domestic work, the amendment of some laws such as section 42 of the Criminal Code to adequately cater for such people, a law to prohibit trafficking of children and curtail domestic violence.
She said so far LAWA-Ghana was piloting its research findings in the Ashanti, Western, Volta, Central and Greater Accra regions and hopes to cover the other regions in the country.
She said the focus of her organisation was to ensure that the government adopts the regulation to give a better security to people working in that field.