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Domestic Workers in Latin America Are Some of the Region’s Most Vulnerable

Posted July 12, 2010 by Leslie Josephs

Latin American migrants desperate for economic opportunities face employers’ exploitation. That’s nothing new. But rarely do we hear about the abuses many Latin Americans suffer from migrating within their region, or even within own home country.

Migrant domestic workers, particularly women, are one of the most vulnerable—and invisible—sectors of migrant populations in Latin America.

On paper, the employees are largely protected against sexual, physical, and psychological abuse, long workdays, and poor living conditions. But these abuses, along with the employment and exploitation of minors, do occur, and generally go unnoticed.

Because of rampant informality in Latin American economies, part-time or casual domestic work is common for those desperate to make ends meet, and employers often have little regard for the law.

In Peru, the 1980-2000 armed conflict, which left close to 70,000 people dead, was centered in the southern Andes, and forced hundreds of thousands to flee for the country’s coastal capital. The influx of migrants provided Lima with a cheap and desperate labor force, and women and girls – many of them minors, were left with domestic labor to survive.

Even today, young girls often travel alone to the capital to search for domestic work and send money back to their families in the rural interior of the country. Some employers work them so hard that they do not receive an education, though it is illegal for employers to prohibit young domestic workers from attending school.

Over the past decade, several Latin American countries, including Peru and Costa Rica, have passed laws regulating workdays, limiting them to eight hours. But it’s often “letra muerta” – only on paper—since it is very difficult to enforce.

These laws, including a new one in Peru that prohibits discrimination, such as forcing employees to wear maid’s uniforms, are tough to enforce since these workers are locked away in private homes.

During its summit in Geneva last month, the International Labor Organization began writing the framework for an international agreement on domestic labor.

Even the United States is beginning to follow suit. Earlier this month New York state lawmakers passed the country’s first law protecting domestic employees.

As Long Islanders know, one of the nation’s most infamous cases of domestic worker abuses http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/18/nyregion/18slave.html” title=“occurred in Central Islip”>occurred in Central Islip.

Three years ago, a wealthy Muttontown couple was convicted of enslaving and torturing two Indonesian domestic employees. The couple was convicted on 12 charges that included involuntary servitude, conspiracy, forced labor, and the harboring of aliens.

Image courtesy of Collin Anderson via Flickr.

Tags : domestic workers, domestic workers' bill of rights, peru