ABSTRACT

This chapter centres the challenge of historical forms of inequality in current efforts to formalise the informal economy. The challenge was at the core of international initiatives to regulate decent work for domestic workers. The chapter demonstrates that regulatory frameworks must be attentive to the existing norms that order the relationship in highly inequitable ways. To regulate decent work for domestic workers requires not only a visibility strategy, but also a deliberate decision to transgress the asymmetrical law of the household workplace. In this sense, to render domestic work visible means ensuring that domestic workers are meaningfully included in an alternative regulatory framework that ensures their meaningful incorporation into the corpus of a labour law that fosters equality. International standard setting on decent work for domestic workers drew upon a human rights claim to foster inclusive equality through labour law.