Domestic workers most of whom are women represent one of the most exploited and least protected groups in the global labour market. Despite the essential nature of their work, many are denied the fundamental rights and protections afforded to other workers. Across Africa, domestic work remains informal, mainly excluded from labour legislation and social security systems. As a result, domestic workers are frequently subjected to poverty, excessive working hours, and abuse, with little or no access to redress or justice.

The situation is particularly severe for migrant domestic workers, who face multiple and intersecting vulnerabilities: precarious migration status, language barriers, social isolation, systemic discrimination, and, for most Africans and black workers, racial discrimination. Many are trapped under oppressive regimes such as the kafala system, which ties a worker’s legal residence to their employer, creating conditions ripe for exploitation, servitude, and abuse.

In light of this, ITUC-Africa strongly supports and actively contributed to the recent complaint filed by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia at the International Labour Organisation. This unprecedented complaint denounces Saudi Arabia’s failure to protect migrant domestic workers from widespread rights violations under the kafala system. It is a firm demand for accountability and a call to dismantle legal systems that enable modern slavery. We reiterate that this complaint is primarily intended to ensure genuine, inclusive, collaborative, and time-bound, pragmatic reforms in the labour migration laws and practices of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Further, ITUC-Africa commends the courage, determination and resilience of domestic workers and their unions across Africa and beyond. Their resistance and mobilisation are reshaping narratives and forcing institutions to act. On this International Day for Domestic Workers,

ITUC-Africa reaffirms its unwavering solidarity with them and calls for:
• Full implementation of ILO Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, ensuring that domestic workers enjoy the same rights as all other workers.
• Legal recognition and inclusion of domestic work in national labour laws, including rights to minimum wage, regulated working hours, rest days, and access to social security.
• Protection and empowerment of migrant domestic workers, through fair recruitment practices, enforceable bilateral agreements, effective grievance mechanisms, and portability of rights.
• Abolition of exploitative systems like the kafala sponsorship system, which institutionalise dependency and facilitate abuse.
• Gender-responsive labour policies, to tackle the specific vulnerabilities faced by women domestic workers, including gender-based violence, discrimination, and exclusion from maternity protection.
• Freedom of association and the right to organise, without interference or retaliation, so domestic workers can build collective power and shape policies that affect their lives.

In Solidarity,
Akhator Joel Odigie
General Secretary
Issued in Lome, on 16th June 2025