• The invisibility of domestic workers
    Commentary
    May 4, 2012

    Liesl Gerntholtz, the Director of the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, says one of the major problems they have found in their latest research (mainly in Asia and the Middle East) is that labor law does not recognize domestic workers as workers so they are therefore not well protected. 

  • Indonesia: Parliament Approves Migrant Workers Convention
    Press release
    Apr 12, 2012

    Indonesia’s ratification of the Migrant Workers Convention will bring new protections for millions of Indonesian migrant workers, Migrant Care and Human Rights Watch said today. The Indonesian parliament adopted the international treaty on April 12, 2012, without reservations in a plenary session.

  • Singapore: Domestic Workers to Get Weekly Day of Rest
    Press release
    Mar 5, 2012
    The decision by Singapore’s Manpower Ministry to grant foreign domestic workers a weekly rest day is an important reform but falls short of international standards. The changes, announced on March 5, 2012, go into effect only for new contracts beginning in January 2013 and do not address the exclusion of domestic workers from other key labor protections in Singapore’s Employment Act.
  • 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.
  • Bahrain: Resolve Travel Ban Conundrum
    Press release
    Jan 16, 2012
    Bahraini authorities should immediately resolve the predicament of foreign residents prevented from leaving the country due to debts, or from working to repay those debts.
  • Cambodia/ Malaysia: Domestic Workers Face Abuse
    Press release
    Oct 31, 2011
    The Cambodian and Malaysian governments’ failure to regulate recruiters and employers leaves Cambodian migrant domestic workers exposed to a wide range of abuses. Tens of thousands of Cambodian women and girls who migrate to Malaysia have little protection against forced confinement in training centers, heavy debt burdens, and exploitative working conditions.
  • Cambodia: Overhaul Protections for Migrant Domestic Workers
    Press release
    Oct 14, 2011
    Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s proposed ban on sending domestic workers to Malaysia should be accompanied by a major overhaul in protections for these workers. On October 14, 2011, Hun Sen promised an opposition lawmaker, Mu Sochua, to halt migration in the wake of repeated complaints of abuse during recruitment in Cambodia and employment in Malaysia.
  • 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.

  • 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.