Domestic Workers’ Association, Campina Grande

The initiative, supported by Brazil Fund, aims at strengthening political education of female domestic workers about their rights, and giving visibility to the rights already achieved and to those yet to be realized.

Through workshops, and the production of informative materials, the organization wants to improve the participation of the group in the national mobilizations in favor of the Constitutional Amendment Project to be presented later this year. The project seeks the extension of women domestic workers’ rights.

Currently, the Federal Constitution excludes domestic workers from the general set of labor rights, treating them in a special way. Only 9 out of the 34 rights guaranteed to urban and rural workers are extended to the group. Unequal treatment is a human rights violation and also triggers other forms of violence – patrimonial, moral, physical and psychological -, maltreatment, and work exploitation through low wages, among others.

In Brazil 80% of the approximate 8 million women practicing this activity do not have working papers. Within this group, 500 thousand are girls aged from 5 to 14 years old and exposed to long and heavy workdays.

The Association aims to contribute to the strengthening of the profession of domestic workers. With emphasis on the fight for rights and the achievement of freedom and autonomy of the class’ representation, it seeks to ensure better living and work conditions for its constituents, with the aim of promoting a more just and democratic society.

Among the activities already conducted, there are trainings, campaigns, seminars, task forces, mobilizations and leafleting for the defense of domestic workers’ rights and the end of violence against women.