Slavery days coming back, warns Irene Fernandez

A Cambodian domestic worker in Malaysia told human rights activist Irene Fernandez that she used to suck the fish bones left on her employer’s dinner plate, because she was only given leftovers to eat.

Another said she was forced to cook, clean and care for children from 5 a.m. until past midnight, the New York Times reports.


“It’s so dehumanizing,” Ms. Fernandez told the paper. “To me, it’s just slavery days coming back — and that’s just frightening.”

Ms. Fernandez’s first job was as a teacher, but at the age of 23, she left the security of a government job for the life of an activist with the Malaysian YCW and later the women’s rights movement.

The accounts of abuse she has heard led Ms. Fernandez to conclude that Malaysia does not do enough to protect migrant workers, she told The Jakarta Post, an Indonesian newspaper, in May.

But the Malaysian government was not happy.

“While there may not be specific laws for migrant workers, Malaysia has sufficient laws to protect all workers, including foreign workers,” Ms. Maznah was quoted as saying in The Star, a Malaysian newspaper.

A police spokesman said Monday that the investigation was still under way and it had not yet been decided whether to charge Ms. Fernandez. Charges may be less likely given that Prime Minister Najib Razak recently announced that he intends to repeal the Sedition Act.

SOURCE

Malaysian Activist Speaks Out for Migrant Workers (New York Times)

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CCI welcomes Decent Work for Domestic Workers Convention

In March 2008, the ILO Governing Body decided to place an item on the agenda of the 99th Session (2010) of the Conference with a view to setting standards on decent work for domestic workers. At that Session, the Conference decided, by a resolution adopted on 16 June 2010, to place on the agenda of its 100th Session an item entitled Decent work for domestic workers, for second discussion, with a view to the adoption of a comprehensive standard (a Convention supplemented by a Recommendation)

On the 7th June, 2011, the dream of millions of domestic workers and the entire working class became a reality with the adoption of the text of the historic convention on domestic workers. This landmark convention recognises domestic work as genuine ‘work’ and places domestic workers on par with other categories of workers.

However, the final text of the convention and recommendation will come up for voting at the International Labour Conference next week. Cardijn Community International (CCI) hopes that the convention will be approved.

CCI salutes the efforts of the domestic workers’ movements, associations, NGOs and other civil society organisations including the International YCW (IYCW) and National Domestic Workers Movement in India for their tireless decades long struggle to get this declaration adopted.

CCI is of the view that mere adoption of a convention will not change the life of the domestic workers around the world. Much has to be done in sensitizing the people and to bring about a change in the ‘mind-set’ of those who employ domestic workers. The active cooperation of the member states is very essential in the implementation and monitoring of the spirit and motive of the convention.

CCI for its part will continue to be in solidarity with the cause of the domestic workers and shall include in its activities a campaign to implement the convention in letter and spirit.

International Coordination

Cardijn Community International (CCI)

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