Child labour and domestic work

Photo Source: Opinion Junction

Domestic work means work performed in or for a household or households and “domestic worker” means any person engaged in domestic work within an employment relationship.

The term domestic work covers a wide range of tasks and services that vary from country to country and that can be different depending on the age, gender, ethnic background and migration status of the workers concerned, as well as the cultural and economic context in which they work. This means that a definition of domestic work and the workers involved on the basis only of the tasks being performed, risks being perpetually incomplete. Common and distinctive characteristic that domestic workers are employed by and provide services for third party private households. Child labour in domestic work refers to situations where domestic work is performed by children below the relevant minimum age (for light work, full-time non-hazardous work), in hazardous conditions or in a slavery-like situation. This general concept encapsulates both permissible as well as non permissible situations.