We Are Strong and That Strength Is the Foundation of Every Right We Deserve By Janice Benitez

I began my life as a domestic worker in September 2014. In the years since, I have carried myself with a quiet determination that those around me might not always see but that has never wavered. I draw strength from my family, my faith, my fellow domestic workers, my knowledge of my rights, and my hope for a better future. These are not things I call upon occasionally. They are the constant texture of my working life.

On my hardest days, prayer is what holds me steady. And through all the days, hard and otherwise, my message to the world remains the same. I am strong. I say it without qualification. It is not a claim I make tentatively. It is something I know, from the inside, after years of doing work that requires more than most people recognise.

I am moderately hopeful that things will get better for domestic workers, and I believe the world is beginning to understand the value and dignity of this profession. Every group, employers, government, the general public, and the media, currently gives domestic workers only a little respect. That number can rise. I know it can, because I have seen what happens when workers come together and make themselves heard.

The rights I believe must be restored are all four: the right to change employer without restrictions, the right to renew the Overseas Domestic Worker Visa, the right to stay and settle in the country, and the right to apply for British Citizenship. All of them are very important to my daily life. The urgency of restoring pre-2012 rights is clear, and I feel it deeply.

I identify the inability to renew the visa as the most damaging loss. That restriction ripples through every other part of my life. It limits my ability to leave harmful situations. It prevents me from planning for stability. It keeps me in a permanent state of contingency, where even the most basic decisions carry extra weight because there is always a visa expiry somewhere in the background.

VODW's campaigns are designed to address these exact realities. From the right to change employer freely, which protects workers from entrapment, to the right to settlement, which offers something like a foundation after years of contribution, each campaign speaks to a different dimension of what a protected life looks like. I see all of these as connected. I have spent years understanding how they intersect.

I spend four hours each week worrying about my job and visa situation. That worry is not irrational. It is a rational response to a genuinely uncertain situation. The goal is to remove the source of that uncertainty, not to ask me to simply feel better about it.

I believe workers must speak up, governments must make laws, and the public must also raise awareness. Change is collective, and every voice adds to the weight of what is possible.

If these rights were restored, I would be very happy. That happiness, the happiness of a strong woman who has been working for over a decade and finally sees the protection she deserves put into law, is exactly what this movement is working toward. My strength has always been there. The rights need to catch up with it.

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