New guidebook highlights domestic workers’ rights_ILO
The International Labour Organisation has released a guidebook for domestic workers to promote recognition of their rights.
About 17,000 of the booklets titled Domestic Work _ Decent Work, printed in seven languages including Thai, Burmese, Lao, Shan and Karen, will be distributed through the Labour Ministry and labour advocacy groups.
Domestic workers such as maids, nannies, drivers, security guards and gardeners should receive fair pay, regardless of their nationality, ethnicity or gender, Thetis Mangahas, the ILO’s regional migration specialist, said yesterday.
Ms Thetis said the aim of the guidebook was to help domestic workers so they did not fall into labour exploitation traps while empowering them with the necessary information about their rights.
While distributing the booklets, the ILO is also promoting its conference on domestic workers in Geneva in June.
Anantachai Uthaipattanacheep, director of the Labour Ministry’s legal department, said there might not be clear-cut laws to protect domestic workers but the 1998 Labour Protection Act did provide some safeguards.
The ministry is planning to review legal standards to better protect domestic workers, but labour advocates are not happy about the time it is taking.
Mr Anantachai said the ministry had provided two help hotlines _ 1300 for immediate help for labour trafficking victims and 1506 to deal with contract violations and work permits.
Kanchana Di-ut, of the Foundation for the Health and Knowledge of Ethnic Labour, said Thailand lacked adequate legal and social mechanisms to protect domestic helpers and the government must move quickly to address the problem. Ubon Romphothong, of the Women’s Foundation, said negotiations with the Labour Ministry had stagnated over key issues such as designated holidays for domestic workers and registration.
Non-governmental organisations working on labour issues have long called for the amendment of the 1998 labour law which contains no explicit clauses to protect the rights of domestic workers.
”The easiest way for the government to show its sincerity is to provide a legal blanket for domestic workers,” Ms Ubon said.
She said there were about 30,000 domestic workers registered with the ministry _ most of them foreign migrant workers. However, the real number could be as high as a million since many had not registered as they were minors under 18 or illegal migrants.
One domestic helper, 25-year-old Po-Po, a Burmese national of Pa-o ethnicity who has been working in Thailand for eight years, pleaded with employers to allow them to form social or support groups to help each other.
”We should be treated with some dignity and not be given heavy workloads of 12 hours or more,” Po-Po said.
Samorn Phasomboon, a maid who is chair of the Domestic Workers Network, said the government should extend social security protection to domestic workers.
