ABSTRACT
THE COLLECTIVE INTERNATIONAL POLITICAL ACTIVITY OF WOMEN’S GROUPS HAS immediate implications for state policymaking in Third World or postcolonial contexts. Nations that participate in international forums and agree upon documents such as the Nairobi Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women (1985) and the Beijing Platform for Action (1995) are held accountable to these agreements by the international community and local women’s groups. As a participant in these international agreements and forums, the National Union of Domestic Employees (NUDE) of Trinidad and Tobago has held its government responsible nationally and internationally for the rights of domestic workers. Trinidadian domestic workers, the majority of whom are single parents, earn an average of 56 cents an hour, even though minimum wage legislation requires employers to pay workers at least $1 an hour. Yet these women workers, unlike other workers, are not provided a state forum in which to make known their exploitative wages and other grievances. Employers of domestic workers, therefore, can escape state regulations and employment policies.
