Foreign workers in Irish homes are often mistreated and exploited, writes Carl O'Brien, Social Affairs Correspondent.
They were a nice family in a lot of ways, says Azlina (40), smiling, recalling the six months she spent as a live-in home-help in a south Dublin home. They invited the Malaysian woman for Christmas dinner. They brought her on holidays. She felt part of the family at times. But in other, often subtle ways, she felt she was the subject of a creeping form of mistreatment and exploitation.
"They feel like they own you, like you are their private worker," she says. "They were not giving me public holidays, I wasn't being paid for the work I did on a Saturday, and I was working much longer than was on the contract. I always had to be available. The boundaries are very unclear when you are working at home. When you are uneducated, maybe you are more likely to accept it. For me, I am educated, I found out about my rights. Many domestic workers aren't aware that they are being mistreated.
"They claimed on the work permits that I was an office help, which I suppose was for tax reasons, I'm not sure. They paid me in cash. I wanted to open a bank account, but they kept delaying me."
Azlina's story is one of 20 recounted in a report published by the Migrant Rights Centre of Ireland (MRCI), which says foreign women employed as domestic workers in middle-class Irish homes are being subjected to widespread mistreatment and exploitation.
The group has documented cases of low pay, excessive working hours, unreasonable working conditions, illegal deductions and threatened deportation among women working in what is a growing, unregulated industry in private homes across the State.
Whereas once Irish women provided services as nannies, maids and home-helps abroad, the growth in prosperity and employment means we are employing an increasing number of foreigners to do the work we are now too busy to do.
There are no official figures on numbers employed in domestic service, although migrant groups estimate the figure to be in the region of 1,000, in line with the rapid increase in the number of work permits and visas issued by Irish authorities.
The director of the Migrant Rights Centre, Siobhán O'Donoghue, says employees in domestic service are particularly vulnerable to exploitation.
"The stories contained in our study reflect the general trends being reported to the MRCI by migrant women employed in the private home. These women are working in local communities, yet they are isolated in a way that makes them virtually invisible," she says.
"This is an expanding area of work in Ireland and we urgently need to put in place protections to ensure that these women have access to their employment rights."
A feature of women's stories contained in the report is that domestic workers, paid on average around €250 a week, are increasingly employed by middle-class families as a cost-effective alternative to childcare or care for older people. The cost of sending a child to a crèche in Dublin is anything between €550 and €900 a month. A place in a private nursing home costs between €600 and €1,000 a month.
WHILE SOME SEE the trend of employing foreign home-helps as a necessary feature of prosperity, others, such as American feminist Barbara Ehrenreich, see it as a more sinister development, creating a new "servant culture" which is inculcating racism in children in the west.
"We women in the rich countries work, so we need someone else to do the work at home and look after our children," she writes in her latest book, Global Woman, published last year. "Our children learn quickly in this servant economy that some people are more worthy than others. New hierarchies emerge. Because increasingly cleaning women are women of colour, so you imprint racism very early."
Azlina, the Malaysian domestic worker, says such attitudes depend on the parents and how they treat their domestic worker. She shares a flat in Dublin with four other women also employed as nannies or assistants, who have had mixed experiences.
"Among some of the women who employ us, they see us as workers or servants," she says.
"They cannot understand that we might be educated. When I told the woman employer in the house that I was going to attend night-classes in UCD, she could not understand why. She only cared about how it would affect her and her lifestyle. She only saw me as a worker who could make her life easier."
She says this conflict over seeking education led to the termination of her employment.
Given that work permits are attached to employers, however, many women are willing to accept inadequate conditions of employment as they perceive the system to be a form of bonded or indentured labour.
The MRCI, and other campaigners, have called for the work permit system to be restructured to give employees more control over their future.
IN THE AREA of domestic work, this week's report recommends that the State put in place supports for domestic workers to access their rights, take action when their rights are violated and strengthen protections already in place. It also calls for the definition and establishment of clear terms and conditions of employment for domestic workers.
"In publishing this report, we hope that action will be taken to strengthen the protections in place for employees in the private home, and that there will be more vigilant monitoring of what is happening for these women. All sections of society have a role to play," says O'Donoghue.
Azlina says while protection for workers is vital, there also needs to be a shift in attitude among employers and how they treat foreign workers in their own homes.
"I say that maybe it's 50:50 between the families who are very good and those who mistreat domestic workers," she says. "The problem with parents who don't respect foreign workers is that they pass these attitudes on to their children. Treating us without any respect becomes normal. That's very worrying for us and for the people of Ireland."