South Asia sub-regional knowledge sharing workshop on domestic workers and home-based workers

ILO conducted a bipartite knowledge sharing workshop with sixty participants from six countries in the South Asian sub-region.

The work shop facilitated 67 participants; from six countries in South Asia sub-region (Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) to discuss various issues on domestic and home-based work such as working conditions, policy developments and workers’ voices, collective representation practices among others. Participants shared their respective country-specific experiences. The workshop started with a welcome address by Richard Howard, Director, ILO Nepal Country Office. In the inaugural session, Khila Nath Dahal, President, Nepal Trade Union Congress, and Khondaker Mostan Hossain, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Bangladesh, emphasized the importance of addressing decent work deficits in these two sectors. Sher Verick, Deputy Director, ILO Decent Work Team for South Asia and Country Office for India provided a brief overview of domestic and home-based workers in the region and spoke of its future. Aya Matsuura, Gender Specialist, ILO, set the workshop’s aims and objectives.

The workshop sessions were designed in a way to deal with theoretical aspects of domestic and home-based work by the ILO experts and also specialists from the world of academia and law. It was followed by discussion on the ongoing developments at the policy front in the sub-region. Prof Kamala Sankaran spoke of the importance of defining employment relations as an essential first step towards formalization of the two sectors. ILO’s international instruments on formalizing domestic and home-based work were also discussed.

The workshop focus also lead to information sharing on the ongoing developments in the sectors. There were panels on policy frameworks and challenges of each country. How improvements in working conditions can be brought about was also discussed at length by Bangladesh, India and Pakistan.

Day two of the workshop, focused on the role of trade union organization of workers. There was an active group exercise during the workshops. Four groups were formed — government officials, workers’ organizations, CSOs in the domestic work and home-based work sectors, and employers’ organizations. Each group drew various action plans towards achieving decent working conditions. Some suggestions were as follows:
  1. Employers’ organizations assured their support for domestic workers to negotiate their terms with the government on better working conditions. They also supported the use of technology to help them raise their voice.
  2. Government officials committed to facilitating policy and legislations to improve the working and living conditions of domestic and home-based workers. The officials also stressed on awareness generation campaigns and strict enforcements of prospective policies.
  3. . Domestic workers stated that achieving a legislation for domestic workers in each of these countries, pressurizing government for ratification of ILO’s convention 189, constitution of national, sub-regional and regional platforms, and inclusion of domestic workers in the SAARC agenda as top priorities.
  4. Home-based workers’ group spoke of the need to collect evidence on working conditions of home-based workers through research. They also emphasized on the importance of organizing home-based workers and on working towards achieving policy or legal frameworks of the workers in each of the six countries.
All the working groups also unanimously expressed the need to collect accurate data on domestic and home-based workers at the national level.

The workshop concluded with commitments from government representatives, workers’ and civil society organizations, employer representatives and the ILO to further intensify their efforts, both at individual and at institutional levels, so as to promote formal and decent work for domestic and home-based workers in South Asia.