The Day We Took Our Songs and Our Stories to the Gates of Parliament By Aiza

There are moments in a life that mark a before and after. Moments where you can feel, even while they are happening, that something important is shifting, that you are standing inside something larger than yourself and that you will carry it with you long after the day is done. June 14, 2026 was that kind of moment for me. It was the first time I had ever attended an event like this, and by the end of it, I understood something about my own place in this fight that I had not fully grasped before.

The Voice of Domestic Workers, Kalayaan, and other organisations came together at Parliament Square to celebrate International Domestic Workers Day. The location alone carried a weight that was impossible to ignore. Parliament Square is not just a place. It is the symbolic heart of the laws and decisions that shape the lives of everyone in this country, including the domestic workers who have spent years navigating a system that has not always treated them fairly or seen them clearly. To stand there, as a domestic worker, surrounded by others who share that experience, felt like a quiet but powerful act of reclamation. We were not invisible that day. We were present, and we were loud, and we were proud.

Being a first timer made the experience even more overwhelming in the most beautiful way. I did not know exactly what to expect when I arrived, but what I found was a gathering full of energy and colour and conviction. People who had come from different organisations and different backgrounds but who were united by the same essential truth, that domestic workers deserve dignity, recognition, and rights that protect them fully and permanently. That truth was in every face I looked at, in every conversation I was part of, in every moment of that extraordinary afternoon.

I was part of something especially meaningful that day. I was included in Miss Mimi's performance, a spoken word monologue delivered with the kind of honesty and emotion that stops you completely and makes you feel seen in ways you did not even know you needed. Being part of that, standing within that performance, contributing to something artistic and powerful and deeply human in the shadow of the buildings where laws are made, moved me in a way I am still finding words for. Art and advocacy have always belonged together. When a story is told with genuine feeling, it reaches places that policy documents and formal arguments sometimes cannot. Miss Mimi's monologue reached those places. It reminded everyone present that behind every campaign, every visa application, every legal battle, there is a person with a life and a voice and a story worth hearing.

And then came the dancing. Hawak Mo ang Beat filled the square and nobody stayed still. We danced together in front of Parliament, domestic workers from different countries and different stories moving to the same rhythm, joyful and unashamed and completely alive in that moment. There is something about dancing in a public space, in a place of power, that says something words alone cannot always say. It says we are here. It says we are not diminished. It says that our culture and our joy and our humanity are not things we leave at the door when we come to fight for our rights. They are part of the fight itself.

That joy, dancing freely and publicly, is connected to a freedom that too many domestic workers still do not fully possess. The right to change employer without restriction is about exactly this kind of liberation. It is about no longer being bound to a single household with no way out, no longer having your entire legal standing in this country tied to one employer who may or may not treat you with the respect you deserve. Standing in Parliament Square that day, it was impossible not to think about how different that square looks when you are there by choice, free and celebrating, compared to how the world looks when you are trapped in a situation you cannot leave without losing everything.

International Domestic Workers Day exists because the contributions of domestic workers need to be named loudly and publicly, not just acknowledged quietly in private. The right to renew the Overseas Domestic Worker Visa is part of that public acknowledgement. It is the system saying that the work being done is valuable enough to allow the people doing it to stay, to continue, to build lives here with some measure of security and continuity. Without that right, the celebrations of one day ring a little hollow, because recognition without protection is not enough.

Parliament Square is where laws begin their journey. It is where pressure is applied and where voices, gathered in sufficient number, eventually become impossible to ignore. Being there on International Domestic Workers Day, as part of a coalition of organisations all pushing in the same direction, felt like being present at something that mattered. The right to settlement was in the air that day, in the demands being made and the stories being shared and the performances being given. It is the demand that says the years of contribution already made must count for something lasting, something that cannot be taken away when a visa expires or an employer decides they no longer need you.

And marching and dancing in the shadow of Parliament felt like the most appropriate possible place to hold onto the hope of British citizenship. Because citizenship is decided in buildings like those. It is written into law by people who sit inside those walls. And the message of that day, delivered through song and speech and movement and the sheer presence of so many domestic workers gathered together, was clear. We are here. We have always been here. We are part of this country and we deserve to be recognised as such, fully, legally, and permanently.

I am so grateful to have been part of that event. Grateful to the Voice of Domestic Workers and Kalayaan and every organisation that made it happen. Grateful to Miss Mimi for her courage and her artistry and for including me in something so powerful. Grateful to every person who danced that afternoon, who refused to let the gravity of the location stop them from expressing joy, because joy in the face of injustice is one of the bravest things a person can offer.

I went as a first timer and I left as someone who understood, more deeply than before, why this fight matters and why I am part of it. The song, the speech, the dancing, the square, the people. All of it lives in me now, and all of it calls me forward.

We were there. We were heard. And we are not finished yet.

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