Domestic workers demand recognition and protection

DOMESTIC workers say they cannot celebrate Human Rights Day while their own rights remain unprotected and poorly enforced, declaring that there can be no true human rights without domestic worker rights.

- LILITA GCWABE

MEMBERS of the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union marched to the Department of Employment and Labour in Long Street, Cape Town.

(LILITA GCWABE)

As the country commemorated Human Rights Day on Saturday, members of the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union (Sadsawu), supported by Cosatu, marched to the Department of Employment and Labour in Cape Town, where they handed over a memorandum of demands, calling for urgent government intervention.

At the centre of their demands is a call for Labour Minister Nomakhosazana Meth to urgently engage with domestic workers and ensure they are fully recognised as formal workers, with access to the protections afforded to other sectors.

"We can't celebrate if employers, government, and society don't recognise us as workers in South Africa. We carry families, we carry society, and we contribute to the economy," said union leader Gloria Kente.