The story of why Bogotá was the origin of International Domestic Workers Day

Bogotá opened the door to discussion about the conditions under which women have had to work in homes. Although laws have gradually been increasingly recognizing the rights of these people, there is still a need for real value to be given to this work.

Just on a day like today, but in 1988 the first major Congress of Domestic Workers was held in the Colombian capital. This led to the discussion at that meeting several important aspects regarding what is represented by the profession mostly carried out by women and since then this day has been celebrated since 1989.

Faced with this, the United Nations interfered with regard to the definition of the rights and recognition of domestic work, getting the International Labour Organization to issue the first document in 2011 that would basically dignify this work through the Convention to Ensure Decent Work for Domestic Workers.

Since then, Bogotá has also been recognized for having taken the first step 34 years ago on this issue, which even today has some bugs in terms of labor regulation.

Because it is a job that is mostly done by migrant women with low economic resources who, in many cases, are not fulfilled with the most basic requirements required by the Colombian Ministry of Labour. Among the rights that are contemplated, according to the page of the MinTrabajo itself are:

- Cial working day: comprehensive social security

-Social benefits: relief from unemployment, interest on unemployment, holidays, transport assistance, footwear and clothing.

-A remuneration not less than the legal minimum wage in force, which may be proportional to the time worked. In addition to overtime when they are caused.

-Working day not exceeding 8 hours, if it is an internal job this does not exceed 10 hours.

However, the Ministry also specifies the duties of employees, stressing that they must be aware of their rights in order to assert them.

In addition to all of the above, it should be remembered that household chores not only include the daily trades in the place, but also include the care of children, the elderly, nursing, drivers and people responsible for ensuring the safety, care and maintenance of holiday farms.

In Colombia, domestic workers who are integrated into Social Security in 2014, while two years later, in 2016, they are joined by the rest of Colombian workers in being able to have the annual service premium.

According to figures from the National Trade Union School in 2019, 96% of the domestic workforce were women and only just over 30% of them managed to complete their studies.

But in addition to that, in the same year it was recorded that 61% received less than one minimum wage per month. Other telling figures of the job insecurity of this year could be that only 18% of these workers were affiliated to a pension fund.

Considering that the numbers, dynamics and conditions during the pandemic changed, by 2022 the problems would go beyond the lack of recognition of rights, but rather the lack of employability for this sector.

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