By Sarah NEGEDU
Stakeholders have advanced reasons for not only unionisation but enactment of legal framework for the protection of rights of domestic workers in Nigeria.
The call was made at a one-day stakeholders meeting by the Centre for Children’s Health Education, Orientation and Protection, CEE-HOPE, with the support from The Rosa Luxembourg Foundation West Africa.
The meeting, a follow-up from a research by the community-based NGO, indicated that domestic workers are “largely in precarious working conditions with inadequate legal protection for them to seek redress when abused by their employers.”
Speaking at the stakeholders’ meeting, unionists,labour activists, researchers, media representatives, opinion leaders, representatives of government agencies, employers, community leaders,among others, in Abuja on Friday, resolved that there is a need for legislation that regulates the terms of employment and mechanisms for resolving disputes between the domestic workers and their employers.
The event was part of the organisers’ efforts in the implementation of the Rosa Luxemburg-supported project, tagged: *The Rights of Domestic Workers in Nigeria and Imperatives for their Unionisation.”
Founder, CEE-HOPE, Betty Abah, decried the attitude of most employers towards domestic workers, noting that the working conditions of domestic workers are unsatisfactory, therefore, the urgency for legal remedy.
Abah also noted that domestic workers are poorly remunerated and vulnerable to various forms of abuse, regretting the inadequacies of labour law coverage on domestic work, explaining that the meeting was aimed at galvanising support from stakeholders towards unionisation as well as a legal framework for domestic workers in the country.
“Due to the weak institutional framework that can guide the domestic work environment or protect domestic workers’ rights, the precarity in the sector persist unchallenged. There should be more efforts by labour scholars,trade unionists and othe labour support organisations and individuals to advocate for better work conditions for domestic workers,” she said.
Also speaking, Mrs Hauwa Mustapha, a resource person, said domestic workers should be able to enjoy workers’ rights such as fair employment contract, good working conditions and the rights to unionise for the purpose of collective bargaining.
She observed that domestic workers in the country,who are largely women and young girls below 18 years are in informal and precarious working conditions.
According to her, they are often faced with lack of defined working hours, non-commensurate pay and sometimes abusive workers-employers situation.
“Employment contracts and terms of agreement usually contain the work schedule and duties of workers as well as the obligations of the employer. The duties of domestic workers include but not limited to washing and ironing, cooking and kitchen upkeep, babysitting and nanny work, gardening, security, driving, among many others. While many of the workers are employed on the verbal terms of performing specific duties, they usually perform more than tasks than what they were told at the time of employment entry,” she said.
On her part, the Chief Facilitator, Equity Advocates, Comrade Ene Ede, called on employers to treat domestic workers with dignity, noting that they are human beings and not invincible.
The Vice National President of the Nigeria Association of Women Journalists, NAWOJ Zone D, Mrs. Chizoba Ogbeche, said the rights of domestic workers are human rights.
