VODW at the 2025 Labour Party Conference

VODW at the 2025 Labour Party Conference Every year, The Voice of Domestic Workers (VODW) makes its presence felt at the Labour Party Conference. In previous years, members performed outside the ACC Liverpool to raise awareness of our struggles and demands. This year, 2025, our representation took a different form.

On 28 September at 17:15, after joining members at the Unite Building in Moreland Street, our Director Marissa Begonia and Deputy Director Mimi Jalmasco travelled to Liverpool. There, they met with Avril Sharp of Kalayaan to attend the fringe meetings. The first meeting they attended the following day took place in the Revolution Building and focused on asylum policy and the 2025 Border, Security, Asylum and Immigration Act. It was chaired by Adrian Berry KC, with panellists Tony Vaughn MP, Helen Bamber Foundation Executive Director of Asylum aid, Alison Pickup, and Director of ILPA Zoe Bantleman. The discussion centred on the defensive measures that successive governments have embedded into immigration policy, undermining the UK’s commitment to international human rights and restricting access to sanctuary.

The panel explored the political pressures surrounding immigration, highlighting the Labour Party’s challenge of maintaining public support while ensuring fairness and compassion. Much of the conversation addressed the erosion of rights for asylum seekers, including restrictions on citizenship, the suspension of family reunion routes, and reduced protections for trafficking survivors. It was stressed that the UK already operates a vast domestic immigration control system, and that good decision-making, fair processes, and efficient refugee status determinations would do more to alleviate pressure than blaming international treaties.

During this meeting, Marissa was given the opportunity to ask a question about the situation of migrant domestic workers in the UK, making sure their voices and realities were heard.

Marissa Begonia, Director of The Voice of Domestic Workers, raises a vital question on the realities of migrant domestic workers in the UK, ensuring their voices are heard at the table.

Later that afternoon at 16:30, Marissa, Avril and Mimi attended a second meeting in the Hilton about justice and building a better society. This discussion shed light on the continuing crisis in legal aid, which has been in decline since 2013, leaving many parts of the UK—particularly rural and coastal areas—without proper access to legal representation.

The speakers highlighted how this has created “legal deserts” across the country, with Cornwall singled out as suffering both a severe housing crisis and the lowest levels of legal aid support. The panel also discussed the Windrush Compensation Scheme, noting that those without legal representation received far less support than those with access to lawyers. Systemic failures were exposed, from preventable deaths in unsafe housing to ignore warnings and institutions blaming victims rather than accepting responsibility.

The family courts were identified as another failing system where survivors of abuse are often left to represent themselves while facing abusers who have legal counsel, with long backlogs and delays compounding their distress. The panel concluded by stressing the urgent need for new funding models, as well as the potential of technology and AI to increase accessibility, though they cannot replace the value of proper legal services.

After the meeting, Marissa and Avril were able to speak with a Labour Peer, Lord Bach about the restoration of the Overseas Domestic Worker visa and Amendment 153 that had been submitted in the Borders Bill. The Voice of Domestic Workers will never stop campaigning. Each year, we take our fight to the Labour Party Conference because the lives and rights of migrant domestic workers must not be ignored. We remain hopeful that Labour will stand with us and deliver meaningful change.

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