How Much We Are Worth and Why the World Needs to Start Treating Us That Way By Jean

I have been a domestic worker since August 2010, carrying into more than fifteen years of service the conviction that what I do has real worth. I rise each morning at eight, ready to give my best to a household that depends on me, and I bring to every day the straightforward belief that I am worth something, that I deserve to be treated accordingly, and that the world needs to understand this about domestic workers.

My message is direct and personal: I want the world to know how much domestic workers are worth and how much we deserve to be treated well. Not treated well as a favour. Treated well because that is what every person who shows up, works honestly, and contributes to another family's life has a right to expect.

My strength comes from my family. On the hardest days, I turn to prayer. And through it all, I hold my hope at the highest possible level, completely certain that things will get better for domestic workers. I also believe the world fully understands the value and dignity of this profession.

I rate the respect I receive from employers as a lot, from the general public as a lot, and from the media as a lot. The government, however, offers only a little. That distinction is important. Public recognition and professional respect exist in my experience. What lags behind is legislative protection, and that gap is precisely where VODW's work focuses.

The right I identify as most urgently needed is the right to renew the Overseas Domestic Worker Visa. I consider it, along with the right to settlement and the path to citizenship, as very important to the daily lives of domestic workers. I rate the urgency of restoring pre-2012 rights at the maximum. The government, in my assessment, is currently providing strong protection, but I also believe that laws must be made and that change must be codified in ways that do not depend on the goodwill of any particular administration.

I spend three hours each week worrying about my job and visa situation. That number might seem moderate, but it represents three hours of mental energy given to uncertainty rather than to living. When these rights are restored, those three hours belong to me again.

I believe workers and advocates should speak up and raise awareness, and that governments and NGOs should make laws and act. The collective nature of change is clear to me. It does not happen in one place or through one action. It happens when enough people push in the same direction at the same time.

If these rights were restored, it would be very important. Those two words, quiet as they are, carry everything. They carry the worth I want the world to see. They carry the treatment I am asking to receive. They carry the fifteen years of work that has brought me to this moment, still hopeful, still clear, still asking the world to understand what domestic workers deserve. VODW walks with me in that ask, and in the work of turning it into law.

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