Trends and Challenges on Child Domestic Workers in Asia
Presented by Ms. Ma. Cecilia Flores-Oebanda
Visayan Forum Foundation and Child Workers in Asia
During the 2nd Regional Consultation on Child Domestic Workers in Asia
Tiara Oriental Hotel, Makati City, Philippines
26 to 29 July 2002
Background
Asia is home to more than 60% of working children worldwide.
Most still remain invisible, transitory and unreached. Of that, VF estimates that, second to child laborers in agriculture, child domestic workers in households away from their families are most numerous. The 1st CDW regional consultation held here in Manila last Nov. 19-23,1997 participated by NGOs coming from 11 countries recommends to look the issue of CDW in the context of the following:
Child domestic work is a child rights issue
Child domestic works violates a numbers of fundamental rights as defined in the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. Such as; the rights to education; to be cared by parents; the right to condition of living necessary for the child's development, and the right to protect from physical, emotional and sexual abuse, neglect and exploitation.
Child domestic work is a child labor issue
Child domestic workers face economic exploitation, including terms of employment, conditions of work, and other practices contravening international standards.
Child domestic work is a gender issue
There is a growing concern about the prevalence of such a large number of girls in the sector, and the processes (including cultural practices) which push the girls into domestic work and keep them in that condition. The UN convention on the elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) is relevant in these regards.
Child domestic workers are statistically invisible
No comprehensive researches have been made to accurately peg how many they are but at least we have a clearer idea where they are, how they move and what interventions work. Situational studies in Bangladesh, Indonesia, Nepal, Thailand, India and Philippines, indicate the high densities of child domestic workers not only in major cities but also in other urban centers and small towns. Based on the existing data available the following estimates were forwarded:
| Country |
Est. CDW population |
Age Range |
Percent Female |
| Bangladesh |
1.2 million |
5-14 years old |
89% |
| Sri Lanka |
100 thousand |
18 & below |
--- |
| Indonesia |
1.5 million |
18 & below |
--- |
| Nepal |
62 thousand |
14-18 years old |
--- |
| Philippines |
1 million |
--- |
98% |
These are pre-Asian crisis figures, and recent grassroots studies suggest pervasive effects of globalization: Child labor has increased. Abuses are more rampant and more hidden nowadays. The more scattered child laborers are increasingly more difficult to protect. And finally, they tend to sacrifice their education in the face of constricting incomes and opportunities. The plight of child domestic workers similarly follows these trends, threatening to erode our hard-earned gains in advocacy and direct interventions. Despite the dramatic increase in the attention given by many organizations and the variety of strategies for reaching out child domestic workers, the possibilities of realizing concrete actions to really make a big difference in their lives has become increasingly challenging.
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Supply and demand
The sector itself is a part of long-standing historical realities abating social acceptance to domestic work. Domestic work is an old profession. From each generation to the next, our societies have only changed by the names we call these workers, the types of work needed as technology evolves, the amount of salaries we pay and the recreational facilities they can access (such as TV, radio, etc). Essentially, however, domestic are modern day slaves in this globalizing world. We need them to perform tasks, which we would less prefer to because these are lowly, tiring and repetitious. Employers have more productive things to mind, so they prefer additional hands in the house.
Generally, poverty breeds child domestic work. Globalization exacerbates the phenomenon. In recent years, the Asian middle class grew and with it the demand for younger, more subservient household servants. Traditional housewives increasingly seek remunerative work outside their homes. Expanding urban centers also attract young migrants in search for opportunities. Political conflicts such as the wars in Mindanao and East Timor, economic disparities in the Mekong area, etc. are forcing children and families out of their communities. Many illegal recruiters operate within across borders by luring young girls to cities using domestic work as attractive alibis.
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Beliefs and values of child domestic workers, parents and employers contributes to the rise of child domestic work
As we progress in our consultation, I understand that we will go into more detailed reflection on how values, beliefs, laws and economic realities guide experiences of CDW-employer relationships. But let me just briefly discuss how these considerations contribute to the rise of child domestic workers numbers in Asia.
With a considerate employer, a CDW believes that working under a safe roof, for free board and lodging is far better than having no work at all, or working in farms. Child domestic workers don't need high school diploma, valid birth certificates or working permits to become domestic workers. A good impression from the employer, who is sometimes desperate for an immediate replacement, is enough qualification. They can start right away, even if either party signs no contract.
Most child domestic workers share their parents' perceptions. Work is not bad itself; it is bad work that is bad. But most might take the risks, not to mention the low social regard attributed to domestic work. It is an easy way to help the family back home, and a possible chance to continue one's studies. So perhaps going with a friend or relative somehow guarantees them a risk-free employment. Besides, having a daughter to work in the city is a pride, a ladder to social mobility, or perhaps indicative of a girl's good marriage prospects in the future. Child domestic work is not just as a stopgap to employment but also a stepping-stone or preparation for better opportunities like factory work or overseas employment. Finally, most parents also hope that their daughters end up with good employers as benefactors or guardians.
Most CDW working conditions are also highly determined by the values and beliefs of their employers. To fall to the hands of a good employer is considered good luck. Most employers may not mind having child workers at all as long as the same amount of work paid to children as to adults remains the same. For them, employing child domestic workers is also justified because they do routine house chores in preparation for more demanding work, as they grow older. And even when they would have preferred older and more experienced domestic worker who are nowadays harder to find and higher paid, the influx of young recruits or referred town mates is hard to ignore.
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Demographic characteristics and working conditions
Most child domestic workers are very young, undereducated, and mostly women. Their duties are open-ended and ill defined, depending on what the employer expects them to do. They work 24-hours, all week long except when allowed a day off; mostly underpaid, if paid at all. Many work in bondage - for advances during their recruitment, for salary advances or deductions. Many silently suffer abuses - physical, sexual, emotional - but commonly in the form of verbal vexations, for work undone or a glass broken, but sometimes for no reason at all except as uncomplaining and docile emotional punching bags of the employer, usually the woman. Though a roof over the head is surely free, many child domestic workers reveal they were forced to eat leftovers, or compete for dog food, to drink liquid detergent mixed in juice or just swallow the emotional strain that goes with the work. Help from outside is difficult because they cannot go beyond closed doors. They are on their own.
Generally it is difficult to consider all domestic workers as the worst form of child labor. Study and researches like in Thailand show that domestic workers can be also a good opportunity for some children to earn. Cases also show in the Philippines that there are cases of child domestic workers who enjoy humane treatment by employers. Some in fact are naturally considered as part of the employer's family. Employers allow them to go to school, to exercise religious preferences, have days off, contact friends, use the telephone, and watch a favorite TV show. Many a kind master would just prefer maintaining a "normal" distance as the guardian-benefactor.
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Increase of reported cases of extreme abuses, the invisibility of child domestic workers really hinders third party help
Unconventional detection methods by NGOs are sometimes successful in penetrating the sanctity of private homes that curtains reported abuses. Child domestic workers also become highly visible during the recruitment process - when invited by illegal recruiters in their rural communities, trafficked through ports and bus stations, and temporarily safe-housed in city headquarters. Soon after a successful work-entry, many child domestic workers congregate in parks or churches during their days off. They could also be reached out in night and weekend schools. On worse occasions, child domestic workers become visible only when we trace them in jails, police stations, hospital beds, or psychiatric wards - long after the abuse or crime have been made against them.
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NEW TRENDS & ANALYSIS
Domestic work is an old profession. From each generation to the next, our societies have only changed by the names we call these workers, the types of work needed as technology evolves, the amount of salaries we pay and the recreational facilities they can access (such as TV, radio, etc). Essentially, however, househelps are modern day slaves in this globalizing world. We need them to perform tasks, which we would less prefer to because these are lowly, tiring and repetitious. Employers have more productive things to mind, so they prefer additional hands in the house.
During the past decades of a modernizing Asia, the rise of child househelps is notable. The phenomenon has become more pronounced with the yawning economic, social and cultural divide that accompanies globalization, and so may I outline these recent trends:
- Child domestic workers have undoubtedly increased; it is still necessity and affordable therefore efforts in community based prevention are becoming more critically important. Governments are still yet to come up with comparative figures reflecting this growth within at least the past five years. But our grassroots monitoring reveal a swelling number of children leaving their families and communities in search for cash. The tango between El Nino and La Nina, exacerbated by the influx of cheaper agricultural imports and expensive fertilizers, the sharp decline in world prices of traditional exports such as sugar, have literally killed the sustainability of traditional farming and fishing livelihood. This has pressurized the younger members of the families to search work away from home to pitch in their cash remittances, or at least become one mouth less to feed.
Parents, many of whom are thrown out of work, rely more on the employability of their children. Most allow their children to work as domestic work because it may guarantee a regular employment that makes many parents easily consented to advances of illegal recruiters by allowing their children to go with recruiters.
Seeking creative solutions to the root causes of poverty is therefore a continuing long-term challenge. But even as we NGOs venture into setting up micro financing as an example to alleviating the economic status of communities with high incidence of child labor, we face daily uncertainties to survive the competitive atmosphere of the free market system. Increasing prices of basic commodities and cutthroat competition easily erode the viability of micro-enterprises before they are even set up.
- CDW abuses have become more rampant and more hidden; therefore doing more programs for protection is important.
Asia is not replete with laws on child protection. In fact, Many SEA countries such as the Philippines have strong legal framework on child protection. SE on other hand is more on the denial stage at this point. Recently, most of our governments in Asia have ratified ILO Convention 182. But we realize that providing rehabilitative programs to rescued victims of child labor including child domestic work in many of its worse forms, suffer lack of funding, poor coordination, inadequate enforcement of legal provisions, and the like. Rescued victims still have to enjoy special attention in terms of resource allocation at all levels of government projects.
In this context, we now face greater challenge from the increasing cases of abuse, and the ever more hidden nature of such exploitation. Globalization, which brought greater social inequity, has passed heavier burden to employers, support networks and caregivers of child domestic workers.
In other cases, when the child is faced with abuse at work, they would rather not opt to complain because it may just be the last job he/she can find. They cling to the abusive employer, who they see more of a benefactor rather than abuser. Intercession becomes more difficult, and sometimes, rescued victims even blame us implementors for getting them out of without alternative work.
In the same manner, some employers very supportive to their child domestic workers in the past are forced to delay salaries, if at all they can afford for the moment, because of the economic slump. Many employers have also asked their maids to stop schooling. Many also started to hire under aged househelps because older househelps have seek continuing remittances to social security systems.
- The more scattered child domestic workers have become harder to protect. Based from our consultations regarding the Magna Carta for Filipino househelps, many employers expressed their reservations about the affordability of increasing wages, enrolling to benefits, etc. While we maintain that these are minimum standards, we rely on their voluntary abidance and community pressure. Inspection is difficult especially with a few underpaid government labor inspectors we can tap; NGOs like us have increasing roles to play.
- Many victims of trafficking victims are promised jobs as domestic workers Therefore, there is a need to expand our strategies from crisis intervention to comprehensive network intervention. When we discussed the issue of trafficking we always it on the context of sexual exploitation. We need toe expand these perception since most of the children are usually promised jobs as domestic workers at their place of destination. In fact most them not just end up as prostitution, but also as child workers and other abusive situation in worst form of child labor or even in force labor situation.
The phenomenon of migration itself is a vast network of friends, relatives and town mates who recruit children from the countrysides. While this does not guarantee an abuse-free employment, the very informal nature of the facilitation make it harder to detect potential entry to exploitative work. There are also many trafficked by illegal recruitment agencies without any contracts and recruitment permits, and have few travel and work information at hand like where they will work or persons to contact in case of emergencies. A mindset of fear during travel is exacerbated by the limited power, capabilities and facilities of port/bus personnel in these entry/exit points. While intercepted victims have limited practical choices as to return there to families, they would opt to search for work for the meantime rather than going back empty handed or shamed.
- I need to emphasize that education is the worst impacted children's rights by globalizing forces; therefore, an urgent call for alternatives and safety nets. While many Asian countries have increased enrollment rates dramatically, there is an increased drop out rates especially during the Asian crisis. Child domestic workers are spared no less. Schools have closed existing alternative educational programs such as weekend and night classes, in response to the financial crisis. Employers who originally allowed working children the flexibility to combine work and school have tightened their grip. Self-supporting child domestic workers simply drop out of school in the middle of the year because of increasing costs of school supplies and transportation. Any action therefore in making education free and accessible to working children must always take into account their special needs.
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CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE
Some notes on the challenges we have to face, not only in Asia but also worldwide. The broad concerns are:
- Support comprehensive grassroots research to come up with a regional CDW profile and explore theoretical and practical issues related to research, programming and advocacy work that sharpen our analysis of the phenomena of domestic workers in Asia.
- Examine element of force labor situation in domestic workers especially that CDW victim of the trafficking. To work together as a network to determine the possible routes, modes of exploitation, deception and develop effective approaches in the source country, in transit and destination country.
- Propose specific details in providing education for all, taking into account for the special needs of child domestic workers.
- Improve policy advocacy including specific national legislations to enable an environment of standardizing employer-employee relationship, providing special protection for domestic workers of minority age, clarifying institutional roles.
- Develop child centered program policies and insure participation of child domestic workers in their self-determination.
- Increase involvement of employers and other significant persons such as parents, teachers, religious group leaders, media and local officials.
- Implementation of CDW related provision of ILO 182, UNCRC, CEDAW, Anti-Trafficking Protocols, etc. and possibly the formulation of a new international convention for domestic workers
- Capacity building and welfare of program implementers.
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