Ⅲ. Trafficked Migrant Women Domestic Workers Situation
As warned by ILO, although migration for the purposes of work can be an empowering
experience for some women from traditional societies, it can also lead them into situations
of abuse and exploitation. Women migrant workers may be victims of “double
discrimination”
– as migrant workers and as women. Attention must be paid to protecting women from
the problems and conditions they can face, such as sexual exploitation, violence and
trafficking, and to the conditions of certain forms of work held predominantly by women
migrant workers, such as domestic work.18)
The exploitation of female migrants trafficked into sex industry and sexually and
economically exploited has been documented unlike the case of migrant women trafficked
into domestic work that is more insidious because of the private spaces where this takes
place and sheer difficulty of gathering statistics of the number involved.
As rightly observed by the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of Their Families (CMW), migrant domestic workers suffer
discrimination, not only because they belong to a group with low status in society but also
because they are non‐nationals. Often they are engaged in irregular work without a
contract; employers don’t usually pay social security contributions for their workers and
sometimes salaries are withheld. Conditions of work are often difficult, with excessively
long working hours. The irregular migration status of many migrant domestic workers makes
them more vulnerable to abuse, including sexual abuse. Employers very often confiscate the
identity documents of migrant domestic workers. It was remarked that women, who
constitute the majority of migrant domestic workers, suffer a further vulnerability to abuse
and have often no access to justice or other forms of assistance.19)
Recent studies20) to this ugly phenomenon indicate that women formed the bulk o f those
trapped in this situation and suffer untold abuse‐ physically and psychologically. They are
held in domestic servitude and forced labour. Globally trafficking of migrant domestic
workers is growing in scale and is a multi‐ billion dollar business, for which the demand
and supply is not in short fall. The services of migrant domestic workers are widely used
even in diplomatic circles making it extremely difficult to eradicate.
In a story covered by Sunday Independent Newspaper titled‐“Diplomat's nanny lifts lid
18) See ILO, International labour migration. A rights‐based approach Geneva, International Labour Office, 2010
p. 94
19) Report of the Day of General Discussion on Migrant Domestic Workers‐ See CMW/C/11/2 ‐29 October
2009
20) ILO, Decent work for domestic workers (2009)
8 ❙ Seoul International Conference Against Human Trafficking in Migrant Women