[STATEMENT] MDWs Unite: Organise, Resist and Fight for Our Rights!
IMA Statement for International Domestic Workers' Day
16 June 2026
On this International Domestic Workers Day, the International Migrants Alliance unites with the millions of migrant domestic workers (MDWs) around the world fighting for our right to a safe and dignified life with our families. We must strengthen our movement and fight against worsening conditions, repression, and exploitation.
Migrant domestic workers are among the most essential workers in society. We care for children, the elderly, persons with disabilities, and households, making it possible for economies and communities to function. Yet we continue to be treated as among the most disposable and exploited workers in the world.
Across countries and regions, our rights won through decades of struggle are being taken from us. Our rights to rest days, leave, freedom of association, and freedom of expression are increasingly restricted. Domestic workers who organise, speak out, and defend their rights face surveillance, harassment, and criminalisation. While the cost of living continues to rise, our wages remain below minimum wage, leaving domestic workers among the lowest-paid sectors of the global workforce.
Our health and well-being are also under increasing attack. We are forced to work excessive working hours without maximum work-hour protections. We face mandatory live-in arrangements, inadequate accommodation, food deprivation, and unsafe working conditions. Immigration systems tie workers to a single employer, denying us the freedom to change jobs, travel, socialise, or live independently. Governments and recruitment agencies institutionalise exploitation and create conditions for abuse and modern-day slavery.
For migrant domestic workers, exploitation does not end when we return home. After years or even decades of painstaking labour abroad, returned migrants face social exclusion, discrimination, lack of social protection, and inadequate government support. We spend our productive years working overseas and are left without pensions, livelihood opportunities, or meaningful reintegration programs. We are forced to survive on our own despite the sacrifices we have made for our families and communities.
These are not policy failures, but are rooted in an imperialist system that profits from the labour and displacement of migrant workers. Governments continue to promote labour export as a solution to economic crises while failing to create livelihood opportunities, safe communities, and quality social services at home. As a result, millions of us are forced to migrate in search of survival. At the same time, labour-sending and labour-receiving governments evade accountability for the abuse, exploitation and criminalisation forced upon us and our families.
Fifteen years after the adoption of ILO Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, millions of domestic workers still remain excluded from basic labour protections. Many governments have yet to ratify the convention, while others have failed to fully implement and enforce its provisions. The rights promised on paper continue to be denied in practice.
With the global workers movement, migrant domestic workers continue to organise, resist, and fight back. Across the world, domestic workers have won important victories through collective action and grassroots organising. Local worker communities and other migrant workers continue to stand in solidarity with migrant domestic workers who share the same struggles of labour exploitation and state violence. Through economic crises, wars, forced displacement, and political repression, our movement has remained active, resilient, and determined. When domestic workers unite and act in solidarity with all workers at home and abroad, we have the power to defend our rights and advance our struggle for justice and our future.
On this International Domestic Workers Day, we call on migrant domestic workers everywhere to strengthen our organisations, deepen our unity, and expand our movements. We also call on workers, migrants, women, and people's movements across sectors to strengthen solidarity with domestic workers. The worsening economic crises, militarisation, wars, forced migration, and attacks on democratic rights place us at even greater urgency to act now. Our struggles are interconnected, and our victories depend on collective action.
We demand:
Living wages, safe working conditions, regulated working hours, and guaranteed rest days;
Justice for all MDWs whose rights are violated;
Recognition and respect for freedom of association, expression, and organising for all migrant workers;
Abolition of immigration systems that tie workers to employers and deny the same labour rights as local workers;
Comprehensive social protection, reintegration programs, and support for returned migrants;
Government accountability for the economic and social conditions that force migration;
Livelihood opportunities, safe communities, and quality social services in home countries so migration becomes a choice, not a necessity.
Full ratification, implementation, and enforcement of ILO Convention 189 and all protections for domestic workers;
International Domestic Workers Day is not only a day of commemoration—it is a day of action. We call on migrant domestic workers everywhere to organise, expand our movements, strengthen our unions and organisations, and join the growing struggle for migrant rights and social justice.
Join the International Migrants Alliance in advancing the struggle for dignity, rights, and liberation for all migrant workers.
