Women paid 20-year-old minimum wage and have no access to support mechanisms
FEMALE MIGRANT domestic workers are paid no more today than they were almost 20 years ago, new research has shown.
The monthly wages of migrant domestic workers have remained at the level first set in 1990 (£150), which is well below the current minimum wage (£362) and in no way reflects the cost of living.
Worse yet, the majority of employers continue to pay this amount, without accounting the annual increase of five per cent provided in the contract.
The alarming statistics were published by the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies [MIGS] this week as part of its transnational research on the “Integration of Female Migrant Domestic Workers: Strategies for Employment and Civic Participation”.
The project was implemented in partnership with LAI-MOMO (Italy), ISIS- Institute for Social Infrastructure (Germany), ANTIGONE – Information & Documentation Centre on Racism, Ecology, Peace and Non Violence (Greece), CREA (Centre of Research in Theories and Practices that Overcome Inequalities), the University of Barcelona (Spain) and The Filipino National Workers Association (Cyprus).
In today’s world of massive migration flows and globalisation, more and more women are migrating and in some countries constitute the majority of migrants, MIGS said.
The Europe Union, including Cyprus, is no exception to the phenomenon known as ‘the feminisation of migration’.
According to Cyprus’ Civil Registry and Migration records there are currently 22,500 female migrant domestic workers, making up nearly three per cent of the population.
But according to MIGS, women are often limited to low paid industries and occupations and face double, triple and even quadruple discrimination not only because of their race, ethnicity or religion but also because of their gender.
The project’s main findings in Cyprus were that, domestic workers, like all other migrants on the island, are treated as “guest workers”.
Their stay and employment is treated as temporary, linked to a specific employment sector and a specific employer, with work permits granted only valid for a maximum four years, MIGS said.
Unlike other migrant workers whose employment contracts are prepared by the Labour Ministry’s Labour Department, domestic workers’ contracts are drafted by the Interior Ministry’s Civil Registry and Migration Department. These contracts effectively created a relationship of dependency between employer and employee, making domestic workers more vulnerable to exploitation, the researchers found.
Contracts are available in Greek and an English version displays evident discrepancies between the two. Specifically the Greek version is more restrictive than its English equivalent, and in violation of certain basic human rights, such as prohibiting any kind of participation in social life, MIGS said.
Moreover, researchers found the majority of domestic workers lived with their employers who were responsible for providing suitable accommodation and food. However there is currently no state mechanism to ensure that the working and living conditions of domestic workers is in line with the specifications of their contracts.
This lack of accountability is mostly attributed to the fact that most domestic workers reside with their employers within the private sector, to which trade unions and authorities said they had no access.
The improvement of these contracts was considered of primary importance to a study team sent to Cyprus.
The research also raised the issue of domestic workers’ 24-hour ‘on call’ status.
“Although a domestic worker’s contract stipulates that the employee shall work for seven hours per day (for six days a week) it fails to specify an exact time schedule.
“Therefore, unless a specific work schedule between the employer and employee is agreed upon, the domestic worker is “on call” virtually throughout the day and night, inevitably confining her to the house of her employer, excluding her from the “outside” world and Cypriot society in general,” researchers said.
MIGS said the lack of a migrant integration policy, coupled with the country’s immigration model, encouraged racism, xenophobia and discrimination against migrants.
“In the case of female migrant domestic workers, gender inequality is additionally reinforced by the specific employments contracts used, which restrict their rights even further,” the Institute said.
An international conference within the framework of the project will be held in Nicosia in February. It is being organised by MIGS in collaboration with the University of Nicosia and funded under the INTI Preparatory Actions 2005 Programme, European Commission.
The conference plans to address the need for developing an integration model in Europe that responds to its female migrant domestic workers’ needs. It will involve the participation of NGOs, national and EU policy makers, international and local migrant organisations, migration and gender studies experts, as well as representatives from the five partner European countries.
What can be done?
• Ensure that migration laws and policies are gender specific and that the gender dimension is included in all migration laws, policies, directives, regulations and strategies.
• Address the precarious legality of female migrant domestic workers’ employment and reform those structures of migration and employment systems that produce illegality by setting up, for example, an open and continuous system of regularisation for undocumented female migrant domestic workers.
• Promote flexible forms of employment that facilitate full-time employment and therefore ensure full work insurance benefits for those female migrant domestic workers who are employed in multiple households.
• Promote and institutionalise, in legally binding ways, the recognition of female migrant domestic workers as employees and not as “family members” or “family dependents”.
• Encourage the participation of female migrant domestic workers in the public sphere through their inclusion in local councils and eligibility for local elections (to vote and to be a candidate in an election).
• Introduce orientation courses for newly arrived migrants that provide information for health services, social insurance, maternity rights, workers’ collective agreements, etc.
• Promote the reconciliation of work and family life for female migrant domestic workers using a holistic approach that takes into consideration all policies and/or regulations relevant to employment, social insurance and welfare.
• Increase minimum wages for female migrant domestic workers and implement domestic labour as well national regulations for minimum wages.
More specific information on policy recommendations for the integration of female migrant domestic workers will be included in the Resource Book to be published in January.
(Source: MIGS)
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