9. T
he relationship between domestic workers and employers is based on work for pay relationship;
therefore, they are on the whole of a different nature from other legal relations contained in other
types of work. But there is some kind of “Privacy,” which involves this relationship, due to the
nature of the service performed by the domestic worker to the employer, a “personal” service
directly or indirectly, related in many cases to the person served, making the relationship go beyond
the “legal form” to become of a humanitarian nature, which generates many moral considerations
for this bilateral relationship outside the framework of purely legal controls. Also, the nature of
the place where the service is conducted, with all the consequences of being a private place, where
non-owners don’t have the right of entry, and perhaps this privacy is the basis for addressing the
legal relationship between domestic workers and their employers as an “exceptional” relationship.
10. As the provisions of the labor law in force in the civil sector were issued under Law No. (36) for
the year 2012 excluded domestic workers, except for some articles that dealt with some rights. This
requires the existence of legislation to regulate their affairs and the affairs of recruitment offices
and the rights and obligations of each party. What confirms the importance of a needed legislation
to regulate the affairs of this category is a noticeable increase of cases of escape registered with the
Ministry of Labour and Social Development during the years (2014, 2015) which is around five
hundred and sixty-three (563) workers annually.
11. W
ith reference to the provisions of Law No. (26) for the year 2014 creating the NIHR and its
amendments, we find that the Article No. (12) in paragraph (b) explicitly confirmed that the NIHR is
concerned with “studying legislations and regulations on human rights in force in the Kingdom,
and recommend amendments as it deems necessary, especially with regard to the consistency of
these legislations with the Kingdom’s international human rights obligations, and has the right
to recommend new legislations related to human rights”, while paragraph (e) of the same article
on its competence -“ensure the appropriateness of legislative and regulatory texts, regional
and international treaties concerned with human rights issues, and provide suggestions and
recommendations to the competent authorities regarding everything that would promote and
protect human rights, including the recommendation to join the regional and international
conventions on human rights”. These terms of reference are a reflection of the contents of the
Paris principles and general observations of the concerned subcommittee with global alliance for
national human rights institutions (GANHRI).
12. I n activation of this jurisdiction, the NIHR in 2015 put forward its views on the draft law on
domestic workers, prepared in light of the draft law submitted by the House of Representatives,
which detailed in the third annual report of the NIHR in 2015, as its views on the provisions of the
draft law were confined to legal texts which might affect human rights and basic freedoms. In the
same context, the NIHR called for the need to expedite the enactment of legislations that would
regulate the domestic workers’ affairs and include the rights and obligations of all parties.
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