I Work for My Family and My Children and That Is Why I Will Keep Fighting for the Right to Stay By Emie

I have been a domestic worker for six to ten years, beginning in September 2014. I rise every morning at five to begin a day shaped entirely by commitment. I have chosen not to share my name publicly, but the experience I carry is as genuine and important as any name could make it.

My motivation is my family and my children. That is where my strength lives. And on the hardest days, when the work feels heavy and the future feels uncertain, it is the thought of those children and what their future could be that keeps me moving forward.

I am completely hopeful that things will improve for domestic workers. My employers offer a little respect. The government offers nothing at all. My assessment is honest and direct, and it sits alongside my hope without contradicting it. Hope is not the same as satisfaction with the status quo. It is the belief that the status quo can change.

The message I want to send to the world is one I offer with real feeling: I work for my family and my children. It is the universal reason, the one that connects domestic workers across countries, backgrounds, and years of experience. This work is not done in isolation. It is done for the people I love, for the future I am building, for the lives that depend on this sacrifice.

The rights I want restored are the right to change employer without restrictions, the right to renew the Overseas Domestic Worker Visa, and the right to stay and settle in this country. I identify the inability to renew the visa as the most damaging loss, and rate the urgency of restoring pre-2012 rights at the maximum.

I spend eight hours each week worrying about my job and visa situation. Eight hours. That is a full working day every week, absorbed by anxiety and uncertainty. The right to renew the visa, the right to stay, and the right to settle would each reduce that burden. Together, they would effectively remove it.

The government, in my assessment, is providing the lowest possible level of protection to migrant domestic workers. Workers must speak up. That is my call. And it is a call I am answering by sharing my story and being part of the movement that VODW leads.

If these rights were restored, it would mean the right to work. Not the right to work in whatever conditions are given to me without recourse. The right to work fairly, securely, and with the knowledge that the legal framework around me is designed to protect me. VODW fights for every domestic worker whose name is not yet in print, whose story is still waiting to be fully told. My story is one of them.

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