My Work Is Real and Essential and the Rights I Am Asking For Are the Same as Any Other Worker Deserves By Riza

I have been a domestic worker since July 2010, building more than fifteen years of experience in a profession that keeps homes, families, and whole communities running. I have cared for children, supported people who need extra help, managed entire households, and made it possible for families to go out and build their lives because someone trustworthy and skilled is looking after what they leave behind.

That contribution is real. It is skilled. And it is essential.

What I want everyone to understand is something I have thought about carefully across those fifteen years. I am an essential skilled worker. I am not merely present in a home. I am the reason that home functions. My labour holds up the structures that allow the rest of the economy to operate. When I say this, I am not exaggerating. I am describing something that research, economics, and lived experience all confirm.

My strength in this work comes from my family. When the days are hard, prayer steadies me. I am completely hopeful that things will improve, and I also believe the world has genuine awareness of domestic worker dignity, even if that awareness has not yet been fully translated into law.

I am clear about what needs to change. I believe all four of VODW's core rights must be restored: the right to change employer without restrictions, the right to renew the ODW Visa, the right to stay and settle in the country, and the right to apply for British Citizenship. All of the above. The urgency of restoring pre-2012 protections is, for me, at the absolute maximum.

I rate the right to renew the ODW Visa as life-changing and the right to settlement as equally so. For someone who has spent more than fifteen years in this work, the idea of settlement is not abstract. It is the acknowledgment that what I have given to this country has permanent value. It is the possibility of belonging in the place I have spent so much of my working life.

I spend ten hours each week worrying about my job and visa situation. Ten hours taken from rest, from connection, from peace of mind. The mental toll of legal uncertainty is one of the things most difficult to quantify in conversations about domestic worker rights, but it is one of the most real.

If these rights were recognised and protected, it would mean that my work is finally seen for what it truly is: real and essential. It would mean safety and peace of mind. I would know I had a fair wage for the long hours I give, proper rest days to recover, and security that I would not be left stranded if something went wrong. I would have the legal standing to walk away from an unfair situation without fear.

VODW fights for exactly this kind of security. My voice, fifteen years of experience behind it, is one of the clearest articulations of why these campaigns are not just policy debates. They are the difference between a life lived with dignity and a life lived in constant uncertainty.

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