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Barbados: Equal rights a must

Barbados: Equal rights a must

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by IDWFED published Apr 03, 2013 12:00 AM
With several countries enacting legislation to ensure that domestic workers are given equal rights to other workers, Barbados must not be left behind. It is imperative that the ministry charged with seeing that the United Nations Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers and the requisite legislation that will protect this segment of the our society, moves with greater alacrity to ensure that such rights come to fruition.

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With several countries enacting legislation to ensure that domestic workers are given equal rights to other workers, Barbados must not be left behind. It is imperative that the ministry charged with seeing that the United Nations Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers and the requisite legislation that will protect this segment of the our society, moves with greater alacrity to ensure that such rights come to fruition.


Photo: Berit/FLICKR

I am aware that last month Minister of Labour, Social Security and Human Resource Development, Dr. Esther Byer Suckoo, on receiving a petition from the Barbados Workers’ Union’s Gender Equality Committee to have that convention ratified as soon as possible, indicated that her ministry was in the process of laying the ground work to ensure better rights and working conditions for domestic workers. I hope that they do not drag their feet on this matter. While the convention which was adopted by the UN in 2011 will not come into force until September this year, as a leader in this region I firmly believe that we should be among the first in the Caribbean and within the CARICOM grouping to legislatively embrace the convention.

Just last month, Brazil’s senate unanimously passed a new law – which came into effect yesterday – that will cover the 6.5 million domestic workers who reside in that country. There are said to be 52.6 million domestic workers worldwide – most of them women, and as much as 19.6 million of them residing in Latin America and the Caribbean.

While I cannot speak to the numbers that reside in Barbados and while they cannot compare to those in Brazil and larger countries, that does not make their need for adequate protection and provisions under the law any less important. I say that, given that the International Labour Organisation has revealed in a study released in January 2013 that only ten per cent of the domestic workers across the world are covered by general labour legislation to the same extent as other workers, and that more than one quarter of them are totally excluded from national labour legislation.

It is imperative then that countries move to ratify the convention and take steps towards enacting the accompanying legislation, which will not only ensure domestic workers get access to fair and decent working conditions, as I noted before, but prevent abuse, violence and child labour in domestic employment. It will also ensure that these workers have reasonable working hours, are provided with clear information on the terms and conditions of their employment and that they also receive equal treatment in terms of compensation and benefits, including maternity benefits.

Recently, the European Commission presented a proposal for a Council Decision authorising EU member countries to ratify the convention, and while this is necessary because they cannot autonomously ratify ILO conventions without approval of the Council, this is a lesson for the Caribbean region and CARICOM, which should also lobby its member states to ratify the convention as well.

Indeed, while CARICOM does not hold the same power of the European Council over its member states, if the region is serious about moving forward with the free movement of labour and increasing the current categories of persons allowed to move and work within the CARICOM region, the onus is on the CARICOM Secretariat to drive home to the Heads of Government that the requisite environment to ensure the rights of all workers is in place and upheld.

Source: Janelle Riley-Thornhill/The Barbados Advocate

Story Type: News

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