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The Invisible Workforce


Marissa Begonia in Being the Story

Domestic Work is central to human life. It is the beginning and end of all labour.

There are 67 Million domestic workers worldwide and only 10% enjoy labour protection like other workers. In spite of this high number it is the sector overlooked and discriminated against by society and law.

Domestic Workers provide services in private homes. We sweep and clean, wash clothes and dishes, shop and cook, care for children, elderly and disabled that enable others to work outside their homes. Domestic work help keep labour markets and economies working around the globe and is the fuel of the economy. Yet it is always treated as unimportant, something that doesn’t fit, unskilled and undervalued. I know that in order to demand respect and value domestic work requires a fundamental change in society and the system.

A survey of 500 migrant domestic workers in London shows that many domestic workers have one day or no days off while earning 300 pounds a week.

Around 50% of them did not have enough food to eat.

77% of them have been physically abused or sexually harassed in their workplace

No decent person should tolerate such abuse and exploitation especially of an already vulnerable group of workers. Migrant domestic workers are hidden in isolation in private households and their life and labour rights are defined by their immigration status. In 2012 the Government scrapped the Overseas domestic workers’ right to change employer, right to renew visa and right to citizenship making domestic workers worst casualty of the Government hostile environment immigration policy. By denying migrants and migrant domestic workers access to work, health care, housing, bank account and limiting their ability to move freely. And this forces them to work underground, exposed to further severe abuse and exploitation.

I’m Marissa, a domestic worker, mother of 3 and the founding member of The Voice of Domestic workers, a self-help group run by and for migrant domestic workers campaigning for our rights and welfare in the UK.

To help you understand the life of a domestic worker let me tell you my story.

As a mother I couldn’t bear to hear my children cry of hunger, the fear of them dying if they were sick, when I couldn’t afford medication and hospitalisation. I couldn’t bear to watch them sleeping on the floor with just pieces of cloth, I couldn’t even call my Home a Home. I needed to do something right for my children but life was so hard in a poor country like the Philippines that no matter how much I worked there were no jobs where I could make enough money to sustain my children’s needs. The scene of street children in Manila frightened me even more, I was determined that my children would never end up on the street, I would do anything for my children.

The demand of migrant labour to work in other countries was high, especially as domestic workers.I thought of working abroad, but how could I leave my 3 little children who were just 3, 2 and 1 Years old? But I couldn’t just wait and watch them die of hunger either. It was the most difficult, painful decision of my life to leave my children behind in the hope that I could give them a decent life and best future they deserved.

This is the reality for many domestic workers.

So with a heavy heart I set-off to a foreign land, I didn’t even know if I would be safe. I heard my children cry as I walked away, I shut my ears and open my heart with dreams of a better life, a dream I could only hope would come true.

I first worked in Singapore in 1994 as a Nanny for 2 children and housekeeper for 2 families. I had only signed a contract to work for ONE family but I was in a place where I knew no one, so there was nothing I could do. I would remember the cries of my children all the time. It was so difficult to eat, I needed to drink a glass of water for every bite of bread but one thing I knew no matter how difficult, frightening life could be, I had to survive.

After 2 Years overseas, I expected my children wouldn’t recognise me, they pushed me away when they saw me. For my children, their mother was my sister. But I was happy, my children were being loved by my sister as her own. And just as they began to accept me, it was time for me to leave them again.

I decided to work in Hong Kong with much higher salary. But I was forced to work for extended families for free. Although I could talk on the phone to my children at least once a week during my day off, I knew this wasn’t enough. I was not with them when they were ill, I was not with them to help them with their homework. I wanted so much to be a normal mother like any other mother who could both work and physically take care of them.

One of my employers accused me of hurting her child, a child I treated like my own. I had to put-up with this abuse because I had a loan which allowed me to be able to work in Hong Kong and I needed to repay it. If I didn’t pay, my children and family would be attacked by a loan shark.

I tried again to make family life work in the Philippines. Back in Manila, I set-up a stall in-front the house to sell food. Everyday at 4 AM I went to market to buy food to sell, this wasn’t enough so I would work at night as a bookkeeper. I had no contact with my children though I could see them and my house would still drip when it rained, I still worried for their future so I decided to go back to my employer in Hong Kong. They were moving to London and offered me work so I left again.

We arrived and lived in Knightsbridge. While working in London, I realised the cost of living was 3 times higher than in Hong Kong. I was being paid £700 a Month but my employer then took half of it for food and accommodation. They told me that was the law here. I didn’t know my rights, so I believed them.

I worked with so many abusive employers until I found a good employer with one lovely child, where I worked for over 10 Years. This employer has also supported me to be able to create the advocacy and campaigning group: The Voice of Domestic Workers, a charity that has been part of my life here in the UK for the past 9 years.

In recent years the issues we deal with, like Modern day slavery have become part of the political agenda. Specifically for the Prime minister Theresa May as she has called , ‘This is a human rights issue of our time’.

But although this government says that this is a priority, it seems to me that they actively have created policies that do the exact opposite thing. I see migrant domestic workers tied to a system that facilitates forced labour and trafficking, by not giving migrant domestic workers the independent right to renew their visa or to settle. These policies are all part of the hostile environment and only increase exclusion, exploitation and power differences. I see migrant domestic workers suffering in silence, working long hours without rest and pay, victimised and criminalised and in fear of detention and deportation. It seems to me that this government does more to facilitate modern day slavery than to end it.

These are the voices and stories of my fellow domestic workers all working here in the UK.

For the last 3 Months, The Voice of Domestic Workers have rescued 75 domestic workers with cases of physical abuse, unpaid wages and sexual abuse. Modern slavery is alive and all around us here in the UK. Right now, I have 3 domestic workers living with me, who I rescued from abusive employers.

We are women, who care for families that are the building blocks of this nation. We only dreamed of a better life for our own families, we work so hard - only not to be paid, to be beaten and worse to be sexually abused. We may be invisible but that doesn’t mean the work and contribution we make to society and the economy shouldn’t be seen.

Domestic Work is decent work. It is my work as a domestic worker that still allows me to meet my family needs. Through my job I’ve been able to feed, educate and provide for my children who are now living with me. It was 17 awful years of separation but what is important now is that we are able to rebuild our life together as a family and yes, I am now a normal mother who can be there for my children anytime they need me.

Domestic Work is work, domestic workers are workers. They should be protected by the same rights all workers have, even if they are migrants.

Let us not sacrifice our humanity in quest of immigration control.


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