Child Domestic Workers: Protected Persons or Modern-Day Slaves?

Jonathan Blagbrough is programme director of Children Unite (www.childrenunite.org.uk) and an independent consultant on child exploitation.

Child domestic workers are among the most numerous, vulnerable and exploited of the world’s child labourers. Recent estimates from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) indicate that there are at least 15.5 million child domestic workers, and that there are more girls aged under sixteen years in domestic service than in any other type of work.¹ More than half of these children are in hazardous situations—work which by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children (ILO, Convention 182, Article 3(d)). Around 90 per cent of child domestic workers are girls, who are isolated and hard to reach not only because they work behind the closed doors of their employers’ homes, but also because societies see the practice as normal and as important training for later life.

Child domestic workers are those under eighteen years who work in other people’s households, doing domestic chores, caring for children, tending the garden, running errands, helping their employers run small businesses, and other tasks. They include children who “live in” and those who live separately from their employers, as well as those who are paid for their work and the many who work purely in exchange for their food, shelter and care. While it is also the case that many children bear significant domestic workloads in their own homes and face similar issues to child domestic workers, their situation is not the focus here.

Child domestic work demands particular attention because of its conditions of labour. Time and again, child domestic workers report that their daily experience of discrimination and isolation in the household is the most difficult part of their burden. The live-in situation of many also makes them highly dependent on their employers for their basic needs. This seclusion and dependency makes child domestic workers particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, and routinely results in physical, psychological and sexual violence.

Besides violence, numerous other dangers threaten child domestic workers. Hazardous household chemicals (such as cleaning fluids), kitchen knives, irons, boiling water and the use of unfamiliar household appliances have caused many child domestic workers serious injury and even death—especially among younger children and those already exhausted from a full day’s work. There are also likely to be long-term health risks from chronic sleep deprivation and being on call twenty-four hours a day, as well as from heavy tasks such as water collecting.² In Indonesia, the ILO found that children do the same amount of work as adults, which is inappropriate to their physical capacity and stamina. The study also observed that the long hours of work and little time for rest, recreation or socialising affected these children’s mental, physical, social and intellectual development.³

However, while attention to the situation of child domestic workers has grown considerably in the last twenty years, concern about their wellbeing still stems largely from aspects of their working conditions which are easier to see and measure (such as the tasks they do and the number of hours they work), and less from the circumstances which got them there. But recognition of the relationships and beliefs which push and pull children into domestic work is central to understanding their vulnerability to exploitation and abuse by the receiving family, and is crucial to grasping why their situation can sometimes be analogous to slavery. These issues are discussed in greater depth later in this paper.

How and Why Do Children Become Domestic Workers?

While much of the literature continues to present poverty as a key driver, it has been argued that the catch-all use of the term masks more complex and fundamental push factors, such as the cultural motivations of parents to send their girls into “safe” and suitable situations in advance of married life.⁴ Initial results from a recent study of the psychosocial impact of domestic work on children have found that the level of cultural and social acceptability of child domestic work in a society affects the age at which children enter the sector and how they are subsequently treated. Children in societies where the practice is widely accepted were found to start work at a younger age and to be subject to greater exploitation than in those where the practice is less tolerated.⁵

Girls may also enter domestic service of their own volition, as this might offer them the only chance of continuing their education, or of escaping from family violence. Family break-ups and physical and sexual abuse in their own families were common catalysts for children to leave home and begin work, as were issues such as alcoholism.

“I prefer to live with my employers because they are good to me. They don’t force me to do things that I cannot do. For example, I get enough rest and I can decide when I want to do laundry.” (Child domestic worker, Philippines)⁶

Child domestic workers themselves have spoken to Anti-Slavery International of the many ways in which they have been pushed and pulled into domestic service.⁷ In India, a number of children were working to repay loans. In Peru and the Philippines, older children spoke of their decision to seek work in the city in order to pursue their education. In Tanzania, a quarter of respondents to the Anti-Slavery International study recounted that they were forced into domestic work because family members had died from HIV/AIDS and they had no reliable relatives to take care of them.

Children are also pulled into domestic service by siblings and friends already working as domestics, and because of employers’ demands for younger workers. In Nepal, children said that it was hard to continue as a domestic worker above the legal minimum working age of fourteen years as employers had told them that older children are more trouble and are able to bargain for higher salaries and other rights. Mothers often play a