ABSTRACT
Growing movements for domestic worker's rights, at local, national, and international levels, are exposing and challenging the devaluation of caregiving work. The demand for domestic help has increased in many countries as more women, often the traditional providers of caregiving, enter the formal workforce, as countries with growing elderly populations seek to keep them at home, and as public policies and policies and workplace structures remain slow to provide flexible work arrangements. Despite a steady string of successes, this women worker-led movement has struggled to gain attention and resources long focused instead on campaigns that frame exploited workers as modern-day slaves who must be rescued. The adoption of the International Labour Organization (ILO) domestic workers convention, spurred by the strong mobilization of domestic workers and their allies and coupled with participatory and awareness-raising negotiations, provided a transformational moment for the domestic worker's movement.
