Domestic Workers Deserve Better’

Trades Union Congress (TUC) boss, Kofi Asamoah has expressed disgust at the current working conditions of domestic workers across the country.

Mr. Asamoah, at an advocacy seminar on the International Labour Organization’s recommendation for domestic workers, said even though a lot of homes and organizations employ the services of domestic workers, their rights are not respected.

“In the foreign countries, being a domestic worker pays but in Ghana, domestic workers are not respected. They do not receive minimum wages and their working conditions are very poor,” Mr. Asamoah underscored.

He said “most domestic workers are subjected to various forms of physical, emotional and sexual abuse. There is no system to monitor the times they start working and when they are to close. Some domestic workers are made to work throughout the day because there is nothing like an appointment letter which defines their nature of work.”

The TUC and the Employers Association of Ghana are expected to work endlessly with the government to help improve the lives of domestic workers in Ghana.

A member of the Leadership and Advocacy for Women in Africa, Margaret Kutsoati, in a keynote address, stated that domestic work was one of the oldest professions in the world and that the rights of such workers must be respected.

She said, “In Ghana, domestic workers are needed from cradle to the grave. Most people experience the services of a domestic worker at infancy in the form of nannies, adolescence in the form of drivers, parenting in the form of house helps and during old age as care givers.”

The International Labour Organization states that 13.5 per cent of domestic workers are women and their welfare are not guaranteed. 

In most cases, domestic workers are family members while in other case they are total strangers. 

They are not considered to be workers because there is no regulatory body that protects their right.