Union members protesting and collecting signatures. Credit: Sri Lankan Domestic Workers Union.
The Sri Lankan Domestic Workers Union, along with other trade union and women’s groups, has organised a picket for Monday 6th July, outside the Supreme Court in Colombo. The protesters are demanding that action is taken against Justice Sarath Abrew who is alleged to have raped and brutally attacked a domestic worker at his home on or around the 26th June. The woman’s injuries included a fractured skull. She was admitted into hospital as an emergency.
If an attack like this had been in a public place it would be just as horrific. That violence and degradation can happen in the home and within a working relationship underscores the profound susceptibility of women domestic workers. As The International Labour Organisation has recognised, ‘domestic workers, whether working in their home countries or abroad, are vulnerable to many forms of abuse, harassment and violence, in part because of the intimacy and isolation of the workplace’.
