A national campaign aimed at having the Australian Government sign and ratify an international convention on domestic workers’ rights was launched in Sydney yesterday.
The Salvation Army’s Freedom Partnership has joined with Walk Free in demanding the government sign and ratify International Labor Organization Convention 189 which entered into force in September last year.
CALLING FOR RATIFICATION: Members of the public were yesterday invited to sign a “pledge wall” erected in Sydney’s Martin Place petition the Australian Government about signing and ratifying ILO C189.
There are an estimated 54,000 domestic workers in Australia – around 90 per cent of them women.
Jenny Stanger, national manager of the Freedom Partnership, said at the launch that while Australia has strong labor laws and complaint mechanisms for when there are breaches, “there are workers who still fall through the cracks and employers are making profits from stealing their labour”.
“Migrant workers and people on temporary visas are particularly vulnerable as their migration status may affect their ability to remain in Australia long enough to effectively take action to recover stolen wages.”
She said the Freedom Partnership and Walk Free were of the view that ratification of C189 would provide “another tool” that can be used in the fight to end slavery-like conditions in Australia. “Articles 15, 16 and 17 of the convention ensure access to effective remedies when abuse has occurred…”
Earlier in a statement Ms Stanger said: “The UN Special Rapporteur and others have called for ratification in the past and it is high time Australia followed the lead of other nations by signing and ratifying this law into treaty.”
The 2013 Global Slavery Index put the number of people living in slavery in Australia at more than 3,000. Speaking in the same statement, Katharine Bryant, research manager at Walk Free and lead author of the index, said there had been “abhorrent” situations in which domestic workers had been forced to work long days, had been abused verbally and physically and denied their freedom and wages. “Is it too much to ask for domestic workers to receive basic protections under the law?”
A spokesperson for Employment Minister Eric Abetz told Sight that the Australian Government recognised domestic workers around the world have often not been adequately covered by international or national labor regulations but said this was not the case in Australia.
“It is a matter for the government to consider whether it is in the national interest to pursue ratification of an international treaty. Australia already complies with our international obligations to take action to prevent and prosecute forced labor, and the Coalition Government was pleased to support the adoption of the new forced labour protocol at the International Labour Conference in Geneva in June this year.”
~ http://campaigns.walkfree.org/p/domesticworkerdignity
~ www.endslavery.salvos.org.au
