Skip to content Skip to footer

Domestic Workers From Across Globe Urge Inclusion at United Nations Women’s Summit

Historic Gathering Expected to Set Global Women’s Agenda for Next Twenty Years.

March 8, 2015 – New York, NY: For the next two weeks, the United Nations will be the central site for any effort to address gender equality as world governments attend the Commission on the Status of Women: Implementing the Beijing Platform of 1995. At the events, domestic workers from multiple countries will push for adoption of international labor standards and labor projections for domestic workers as central components of any plan for women’s rights in the next twenty years.

In a rare opportunity, representatives of the International Domestic Worker Federation, a global network formed in 2006 representing the 53 million member workforce with 47 affiliates in 43 countries, will take the stage at the historic event to speak to the phenomena of forced labor and common abuse within domestic and care work.

They note that twenty years since governments pledged their commitment to achieving gender equality at the Fourth Women World Conference in Beijing, 70% of the world’s poor are women and women are over-represented in low status, poorly-paid, informal, part-time, insecure and precarious work. Domestic work, paid or unpaid, remains marginalized in social and economic policymaking.

However, a new trend is emerging among concerned governments. Within the United States, domestic workers have succeeded in passing state-level Bill of Rights in four states and recently moved the Department of Labor to issue new regulations including homecare workers in minimum wage and overtime law.

In Hong Kong, the brave testimony of a starved and battered domestic worker led to the conviction of her abusive employer. In the past four years, and with the United States glaringly absent, seventeen countries have made addressing the abuse of domestic workers (especially vulnerable due to the isolation of their worksite and the rampant abuses of labor trafficking ) a pillar of platforms for women’s equality by adopting the International Labor Organization’s Convention 189. The ILO Convention and enactment of legal rights reforms in some countries has enabled millions of domestic workers to enjoy the rights to minimum wages, social protection and weekly rest.

The International Domestic Worker Federation took to the streets this past Sunday for International Women’s Day and will continue to insist on inclusion within the Commission’s recommendations at events throughout the week.

CSW59 Events with the International Domestic Workers Federation:

10 March, 10am – 11:30am
Ministerial Roundtable Meeting: Ministerial round table A: “Making the economy work for women and girls”
Venue: UN Conference Room 4, UN Secretariat.
Speakers: Ministers of 25 countries, moderated by Elizabeth Tang of IDWF
10 March, 1:15 PM-2:30 PM
Are We Really Leaving Nobody Behind? Equality & Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights for All
Barbara Young, NDWA National Organizer, Panel Presentation
High-Level Task Force for International Conference on Population and Development, Denmark, Uruguay
Where: Trusteeship Chamber – Conference Building (max. capacity: 673)
11 March, 01:00 PM – 02:30 PM
Organizing for Women Migrants’ Rights
Elizabeth Tang
Where: Permanent Mission of Germany to the UN, 871 United Nations Plaza, First Avenue at 49th Street, New York, NY 10017
Flyer Organizing for Women Migrants Right
11 March, 4:30pm
Women’s Economic Empowerment and Labor Rights
Where: Chapel Room, Church Centre, 777, UN Plaza, 44th Street, 1st Avenue.
Speakers: Elizabeth Tang
13 March, 10:00am – 11:30am
Intergenerational Dialogue: A conversation among various gender equality advocates and stakeholders across generations to discuss strategies and perspectives that can accelerate the achieving of gender equality by 2030.
Elizabeth Tang, IDWF General Secretary, Panel Presentation 10-11:30am
Where: ECOSOC Chamber – Conference Building
A valid UN Grounds Pass is required for entry to this event. Seating is available on a first-come, first-served basis. Tickets available here: https://goo.gl/l6K071
Angry, shocked, overwhelmed? Take action: Support independent media.

We’ve borne witness to a chaotic first few months in Trump’s presidency.

Over the last months, each executive order has delivered shock and bewilderment — a core part of a strategy to make the right-wing turn feel inevitable and overwhelming. But, as organizer Sandra Avalos implored us to remember in Truthout last November, “Together, we are more powerful than Trump.”

Indeed, the Trump administration is pushing through executive orders, but — as we’ve reported at Truthout — many are in legal limbo and face court challenges from unions and civil rights groups. Efforts to quash anti-racist teaching and DEI programs are stalled by education faculty, staff, and students refusing to comply. And communities across the country are coming together to raise the alarm on ICE raids, inform neighbors of their civil rights, and protect each other in moving shows of solidarity.

It will be a long fight ahead. And as nonprofit movement media, Truthout plans to be there documenting and uplifting resistance.

As we undertake this life-sustaining work, we appeal for your support. Please, if you find value in what we do, join our community of sustainers by making a monthly or one-time gift.