Inside the Home, Outside the Law
Abuse of Child Domestic Workers in Morocco

Samira M.

I. Summary

Methods

II. Recommendations

To the Moroccan Government
To the Parliament
To the Ministry of Employment and Professional Development
To the Ministry of National Education, Higher Education, Staff Development, and Scientific Research and its Secretariat of State for Literacy and Nonformal Education
To the Ministry of Social Development, Family, and Solidarity and its Secretariat of State for Family, Solidarity, and Social Action
To the Ministry of Justice
To the International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor of the International Labour Organization (ILO-IPEC)
To the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF)
To Donor Countries

III. The Scope of Child Labor in Morocco

Factors contributing to child domestic labor

IV. Recruitment into Child Domestic Labor

Brokers
Other intermediaries
Placements directly initiated by parents

V. Physical and Verbal Abuse, and Sexual Harassment and Exploitation

Physical and verbal abuse
Sexual harassment and exploitation

VI. Other Abusive Conditions of Employment

Underage employment
Workload and hours of work
Wage exploitation
Unpaid wages

VII. Health Impacts

Cumulative psychological harm
Health impacts compounded by inadequate nutrition and health care

VIII. Lack of Access to Complaint Mechanisms

IX. Education

Barriers to formal education
Barriers to nonformal education

X. Child Labor in International Law

Minimum age for employment
The prohibition on economic exploitation and harmful or hazardous labor
Forced labor
Trafficking of children for forced labor
The right to education

XI. The Government Response

Exclusion from protection of the law and failures of enforcement
Neglect of child domestics in national child protection policies
Lack of coordination across agencies and between government and NGOs
Lack of a strategy for rehabilitation

Acknowledgements

December 2005   Vol. 17, No. 12(E)