Five years after the International Labour Organisation (ILO) instituted and adopted Convention 189 and its accompanying Recommendation 201, the first international standards on decent work for domestic workers, Malawi is yet to ratify the convention as government says it is still scrutinising its contents to determine how best the instrument can be applied to the Malawi situation.
The ILO estimates that domestic workers typically earn less than half of average wages and sometimes no more than about 20 percent but their working hours are among the longest and most unpredictable. The labour body says 90 percent of domestic workers are not able to enjoy access to social protections such as pensions and unemployment benefits.
But the Malawi Government says it needs to do thorough diagnostic studies and consultations before it can fully regulate and enforce the law in the domestic setting.
Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Labour, Youth and Manpower Development, Patrick Kabambe, said considering that domestic work is informal, government has to make sure that Malawi is able to meet the provisions contained in the legislation before it can proceed to ratify the convention.
“We want to make sure that the environment is conducive for us to implement what we are ratifying. We are also keen to see that the rights of domestic workers are being respected and that they [domestic workers] are able to bargain for better working conditions,” Kabambe said.
He, however, could not attach a time frame when government would be able to come up with a conclusive position on the matter.
But in an earlier interview, Legal practitioner, All an Muhome, said domestic workers in Malawi are at an even higher risk of abuse because of the existent glitches in Malawi’s labour laws which make it easier for employers to offer below standard working conditions for domestic work.
Muhome said conditions of service for domestic workers in the country remain largely vague and keep changing thereby compromising their constitutional right to fair and safe labour practices.
He said even though domestic workers are adequately protected by the law in terms of hours of work and other work amenities, employers often breach the provisions with impunity.
“There is glaring lack of enforcement of the law to favour all employees and, in particular, domestic workers,” he told us.
Muhome said in terms of social security in the form of pension, the law has exempted employers from registering their domestic workers under pension funds.
“Much as enforcement and implementation of this would pose challenges, the law, in my opinion, should have created a safety net in the form of say unemployment grants to domestic workers who, for one reason or another, lose their employment,” he says.
The adoption of the new international labour standards on domestic work, Convention No. 189 and its accompanying Recommendation No. 201 by the ILO at its 100th International Labour Conference in June 2011 represented a key milestone on the path to the realisation of decent work for domestic workers.
In 2010, the ILO estimated that only 10 percent of domestic workers were covered by labour legislation to the same extent as other workers and the labour body says since 2011, over 70 countries have taken action to ensure decent work for domestic workers. Of these, 22 have ratified the Convention, another 30 have achieved law and policy reform with another 18 engaged in extending protection to domestic workers.
But the ILO says while these measures represent the first steps on a long path to redress a history of exclusion, they are not enough to meet the challenge of protecting domestic workers.
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