Many migrant workers are employed as domestic workers – as gardeners, cleaners, carers – relied upon increasingly by their household employers as government investment in education, elderly care, and other social services diminishes year on year. Their remittances are important for their home countries, and more importantly, for their families. They work with few rights, and companies, whose expatriate employees often recruit these workers, have felt constrained about whether and how they can intervene.
In this conversation, Vani Saraswathi of Migrant-Rights.org tells IHRB's Salil Tripathi why companies should be actively engaged with the workers' conditions, even if they are not their direct employers, and why they should take the responsibility seriously. She calls for the pressing need for improved national labour protections for domestic workers in the Gulf and globally, because their risks have increased dramatically due to the COVID-19 pandemic, with many of them out-of-work and stranded. She offers practical steps that can be taken to safeguard their rights.
How should businesses respond to an age of conflict and uncertainty?
As 2024 began, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen aptly summed up our deeply worrying collective moment. As she put it, speaking at the annual World Economic Forum in Switzerland, we are moving through “an era of conflict and...
26 March 2024 | Commentary
Commentary by Scott Jerbi, Senior Advisor, Policy & Outreach, IHRB