We Are Workers We Do Decent Work and the Freedom to Keep Going Is What We Need By Cristina
- thevoiceofdomesticworkers
- 21 hours ago
- 3 min read
I became a domestic worker in November 2011, stepping into a profession I have carried with pride and professionalism for well over a decade. I begin my working day at seven in the morning, ready for whatever the day requires, drawing my strength from my family, from the knowledge of my rights, and from the hope I hold for a better future.
On the hardest days, I return to the memory of why I started. That act of remembering is not nostalgic. It is strategic. It puts me back in contact with the purpose that has always driven me, the purpose that makes the early mornings and the long hours worth it.
I want the world to know something simple and important. I am a worker. I do decent work. Not marginal work. Not informal work. Decent, honest, skilled work that deserves to be treated with the same respect given to any other professional in any other field.
I am completely hopeful that things will improve, rating my belief at the maximum. I also see my employers as offering a lot of respect, and the media as equally respectful. The government, however, offers nothing in my experience. That gap, between the personal respect I experience and the structural protection I lack, is where the real work of this movement lives.
The rights I believe must come back are the right to change employer without restrictions and the right to renew the Overseas Domestic Worker Visa. I identify the inability to renew the visa as the loss that has hurt domestic workers most. VODW's campaigns for both employer freedom and visa renewal speak to what I have experienced and observed.
The right to change employer without restrictions is, in my assessment, very important to daily life. It is the right that protects my ability to leave a situation that is harmful, without risking everything I have worked for. The right to renew the visa ensures that my continuity is not entirely dependent on the disposition of my current employer or the expiry of a document I cannot renew.
I rate the government's current protection of migrant domestic workers at four out of five, a notably higher assessment than many of my fellow domestic workers. That optimism, combined with my call for change, suggests I believe the system has capacity to do better and I am waiting for it to use that capacity.
I believe everyone must raise awareness and speak up. Workers, NGOs, advocates, the public, and the government all have a responsibility. Change is not something that happens to domestic workers. It is something we are actively working to bring about.
If these rights were restored, I would be working freely because I would have freedom. To work freely, you must first be free. And freedom, for me, means having the legal protections that allow me to make real choices, take real actions, and build a real life without the constant backdrop of constraint and uncertainty. VODW is working to make that freedom available to every domestic worker. My voice is part of how it gets there.
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