• An abhorrent trail of abuse
    Commentary
    Jan 24, 2012
    At least nine Cambodian women died last year while performing domestic work in Malaysia. And the grim reality is that, without strong action by the Cambodian and Malaysian governments to rein in exploitative recruitment and employment practices, more lives will be lost in 2012.
  • Protecting Indonesia’s Vulnerable Migrant Domestic Workers
    Media spotlight
    Oct 31, 2011
    Anis Hidayah was literally going into labor with her second child when she answered her phone, suspecting it would be a migrant worker needing her help. She was right. The woman had recently returned to Indonesia and said she was being extorted before being allowed to return to her hometown.
  • Migrant Domestic Workers in Jordan
    Commentary
    Oct 12, 2011

    The fate of millions of migrant workers in the Middle East has been all but forgotten amid the Arab Spring. Migrant domestic workers, the nannies and housekeepers from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Indonesia, desperately need another revolution.

  • Migrant Domestic Workers in Jordan: Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way
    Commentary
    Oct 12, 2011

    The fate of millions of migrant workers in the Middle East has been all but forgotten amid the Arab Spring. Migrant domestic workers, the nannies and housekeepers from Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Indonesia, desperately need another revolution.

  • Jordan: Domestic Worker Protections Ineffective
    Press release
    Sep 27, 2011
    Jordan needs to enforce the legal protections for migrant domestic workers it has put in place over the past three years, Human Rights Watch and the Tamkeen Center for Legal Aid said in a joint report issued today. New laws and regulations since 2008 give domestic workers the right to regulated working hours and a weekly day off, and criminalize people trafficking, but enforcement remains negligible, the organizations said.
  • Cambodia: New Regulation Short-Changes Domestic Workers
    Press release
    Aug 30, 2011
    Cambodia’s revised regulation on labor migration, approved by Prime Minister Hun Sen on August 17, 2011, falls far short of minimum protections needed to safeguard migrant domestic workers. The regulation omits or only has vague protections for workers and does not adequately address such problems as debt bondage, illegal recruitment of underage workers, and forced confinement by recruitment agencies in Cambodia.
  • ILO: Adopt New Treaty to Combat Child Labor
    Press release
    Jun 9, 2011
    Governments, trade unions, and employers' organizations should combat child labor by adopting a new international treaty on the rights of domestic workers.
  • Domestic workers' conditions 'akin to slavery'
    Commentary
    Jun 9, 2011
    Jo Becker demonstrates why the convention for domestic workers being negotiated by members of the International Labour Organisation is long overdue
  • Sri Lankan Domestic Workers Stranded in Jordan
    Letter
    Jan 27, 2011

    Human Rights Watch writes to request that your government urgently ensures that 37 Sri Lankan women are free to leave Jordan, and in the meantime ensure they have access to adequate housing. The women came to Jordan as migrant domestic workers, have completed their two-year contracts, and at various points over the past two years, sought shelter at the Sri Lankan embassy because of problems with their employers, including nonpayment of wages and overwork.

  • Saudi Arabia: Stop Execution of Domestic Worker
    Press release
    Oct 26, 2010
    King Abdullah and Interior Minister Prince Naif should halt the execution of Rizana Nafeek, a Sri Lankan domestic worker convicted of killing a child in her care when she was 17.