Photo provided by authors.
Today in Colombia, people and government are finally talking about domestic workers rights. This might sound a little strange, given that it is such a fundamental issue. Historically, these women have been relegated to the least visible margins of society, and their work has been consistently undervalued, despite their enormous contribution to society. These women (because talking about male domestic workers is naming the exception, which in itself portrays the problem) have been subjected to every possible form of discrimination: extensive work hours1, payments that are much lower than the minimum wage2, and no social protections – without forgetting to mention instances of labour and sexual abuse. While the past six years have been marked by a series of steps towards improving work and life conditions for domestic workers, it will take a lot more work to push back against centuries of discrimination.
Our journey in this struggle started seven years ago, after we agreed with other people and organisations that were concerned about this issue that the only way to move forward was through collective action and teamwork: by combining our knowledge, the few economic resources to which we had access, and hundreds of hours of volunteer work. Our goal was to make people in our country value the great contribution of paid domestic workers – 96% of whom are women3 – as well as understand that undervaluing of these workers structurally contributes to social inequity.
