Abteilung für Hochschulkommunikation

Abschiedsvorlesung “From servitude to employment? The recognition of paid domestic workers’ rights in Latin America”

The Convention 189 (C189) –adopted in June 2011 by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and put into effect on September 5, 2013– represents a major milestone in the process of recognition of labor and social security rights for domestic workers. Globally, paid domestic work has historically been characterized by exploitative relationships, various forms of servitude and quasi-slavery conditions. For this reason, the formulation of an international legal instrument to regulate the sector required an enormous international movement, one made up of confederations of domestic workers’ unions from different regions of the world, as well as international federations. Taking a macro-sociological perspective, this research project aims to make a legal cartography of the regulatory changes that have taken place in Latin America over the last 23 years in order to understand the role played by C189 in the normative reforms. Seeking to provide an overview of regulatory innovations at the regional level, by taking into account the temporalities of their production, four time periods are analyzed. In the first period, from 2000 to 2007, a number of laws emerge that result from the regional mobilization for the domestic workers’ rights. The second period, from 2008 to 2010, includes reforms that took place while the international movement for domestic workers’ rights was consolidating and amid preparations for the convention. The third period, from 2011 to 2019, presents legal innovations at a time when C189 had the greatest impact: that is, following its ratification in various countries across the region. Finally, in the fourth period, 2020-2023, two different situations converge to bring about regulatory changes in this sector: the Covid-19 pandemic and the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the adoption of C189, with numerous global dissemination campaigns. This periodization makes it possible to trace the regulatory changes that occurred throughout the 21st century, revealing regional communalities and specific paths.