Over 10 mln domestic workers in LatAm suffer from poor working conditions: ILO study

Around 18 million people are involved in domestic work in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 77.5 percent of them are working informally in poor conditions, according to a study released by the International Labor Organization's (ILO) Regional Office on Monday.

The report, titled "Formalization policies of paid domestic work in Latin America and the Caribbean," stated that those workers do not have social security and work grueling shifts for low salaries.

In Latin America and the Caribbean, nearly eight out of every 10 domestic workers are working in informal jobs. What is more, the informal work situation mainly affects women, who make up 93 percent of the domestic workers, or a total of 16.5 million women.

The report added that this type of employment generates work for 14.3 percent of women in Latin America and the Caribbean.

"This is a situation of complex discrimination, with historic serfdom roots in our societies and with attitudes that contribute to making a woman's work invisible," said ILO Regional Director Jose Salazar. He said that many of the domestic workers are of indigenous or African descent or migrants.

Therefore, improving the working conditions of domestic workers is a historic debt and a fundamental part of reducing gender inequality, gender discrimination and poverty in the region, he said.

Salazar said that the ILO adopted Convention 189 in 2011 for domestic workers, an international regulation that has currently been ratified by 22 countries, 12 of which are in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Latin America has 37 percent of all domestic workers in the world, second only to Asia. Endi