Women’s rights fight has moved to state level

Op-Ed  by Kate Michelman and Carol Tracy, appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Sunday, December 9, 2012

That Mitt Romney was stunned by his defeat says much about his and others’ blindness to the divergent forces that carried Barack Obama to victory.

Imagine the bitter truths they must confront as the nature of the electorate becomes clear. The demographic realities that shaped the victory gave joy to those of us who have been ignored, belittled, and targeted by the conservative right. The very women, youth, people of color, gays and lesbians they assumed to be at the margins of national politics had their revenge. And, yes, we voted for “liberal” causes, obvious rights that have been denied for too long by the people who saw the country through out- of- date lenses.

Women, in particular, claimed our rights in bold print. More women turned out to vote than men. We were the largest deciding block in Obama’s victory (11 points over Romney). We left absolutely no doubt that we demand and deserve equal rights: equal pay, an end to pregnancy discrimination and sexual harassment, better family health care, paid leave, and broad access to contraception. At t he t op of t he list: Government should have no part in a woman’s reproductive decisions. Choice. It’s what most women demand for all women. An exit poll revealed that Americans believe abortion should be legal, 59 percent to 36 percent.

We had a great day. We won a solid and lasting protection against discrimination and political harassment. The national vote said it all.

Wrong.

The national vote, while worthy of high-fives all round, is hardly the end of our struggle for women’s rights. When conservatives lose a decisive battle at the federal level, they redouble their efforts at the state and local levels. And they’ve already made that clear in Ohio. A few days after the election the legislature defunded Planned Parenthood.

Facing vetoes from the White House and having no hope of stacking the Supreme Court, pro-life advocates will become much more aggressive at the state levels. Their targets: governors (30 Republicans), Republican-controlled legislatures, and local governments and institutions, including hospital boards, PTAs, even library boards. They are particularly focused on judicial appointments.

Women showed our force in checking the war on women. But don’t be deceived; the war goes on. Only the battlefields change.

Consider some of their recent legislative gains across the nation. Parental disclosure. Ultrasound tests. Showing a woman the X-rays of her unborn. Preprocedure lectures. Shutting down clinics by needlessly raising architectural standards. Forcing women farther afield to find a clinic. The list goes on.

Extreme conservatives can’t roll back Roe v. Wade, but they can and will try to crawl beneath the radar of broad publicity with seemingly innocuous ways to shame us, to deny our rights and our equality. They will count on our satisfaction in winning the White House to soon give way to apathy. To ignore their zeal is to risk forfeiting our hard-fought gains.

To exercise their power in ways that affect their lives and health, women must educate themselves about the values and policy views of decision-makers at every level. In many cases, the decisions that have the biggest impact are made by officials who often don’t attract much attention.

The country is served well by national organizations, but today the greater need is at the state and local levels — to make effective use of traditional and social media and grassroots efforts to profile candidates and encourage women to be aware, to choose, and to vote.

The best of these information groups include both Republicans and Democrats. They may or may not endorse candidates. Their objective is to keep vigilance over all manner of issues affecting women in that state, to share solid information, and to demand accountability from those who threaten our rights.

The only way women will continue our advance toward equality and privacy is to be aware — to take the time not just to understand the forces trying to take back our recent gains, but to make the time to fight back.

Kate Michelman is co-chair of WomenVote PA, president emerita of NARAL Pro-Choice America, and author of “With Liberty and Justice for All: A Life Spent Protecting the Right to Choose.”

Carol E. Tracy is co-chair of WomenVote PA, an initiative of the Women’s Law Project, and Executive Director of the Women’s Law Project.

 

Women have the power – why aren’t more of them using it?

Co-chairs of WomenVote PA, Carol Tracy, Executive Director of the Women’s Law Project, and Kate Michelman, President Emeritus of NARAL Pro-Choice America

AT A RECENT meeting a colleague of ours presented us with a challenge and posed the following questions:  Imagine if every woman of voting age participated in this upcoming presidential election? How would that determine the outcome of the election and the legislation and policy coming out of Washington?  What would happen – would anything really change?

The implications of such a reality are staggering.

For one, you would never hear any politician utter the phrase “legitimate rape” nor would a “transvaginal ultrasound” be prescribed by anyone other than a woman’s doctor; equal pay for equal work would be obvious; our reproductive rights would be championed by politicians, not jeopardized; support for efforts to end violence against women would be expanded; Social Security and Medicare would be stabilized and strengthened, not privatized and minimized.

Sadly, the question is hypothetical and the reality is quite the opposite – but we believe it doesn’t have to be. And we believe we can start by increasing the political participation of women here in Pennsylvania. In 2004, the Women’s Law Project, based in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, began an initiative called WomenVote PA. The goal was and is straightforward: Increase the participation of women in the electoral process. We are focused on making WomenVote PA a resource for voters to learn more about legislative and policy initiatives and, equally important, a community both in the real world and the digital world, a place that uses education, collaboration and information-sharing to mobilize women voters.

The focus on the November election all but guarantees more Americans will vote this November than in any election since 2008 (assuming voter-ID requirements don’t deprive them of their right to vote). In 2008, 6 million Pennsylvanians voted in the presidential race and yet just two years later, 4 million voted in the U.S. Senate race – a staggering 2 million Pennsylvanians who voted in 2008 failed to do so in 2010. That is likely over 1 million women not voting in off-year elections – and each of these off-year elections determine who sits in the Pennsylvania General Assembly as well as the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate. Increasing that off-year participation number even slightly has real policy implications and real-world effects on women.

A reason behind WomenVote PA’s re-emergence has been what we will generously describe as politicians simply “not getting it.” Whether it is using the phrase “legitimate rape,” attempting to define rape only as “forcible rape,” blocking legislation in support of equal pay for equal work, rolling back our reproductive rights or limiting protections for victims of domestic and sexual violence, WomenVote PA is active in educating our network on the federal, state and local legislation that affects their lives. We believe in assisting our elected officials and policy makers in “getting it.”

And we have the data to back it up. WomenVote PA is an initiative of the Women’s Law Project, which has just published a remarkable study titled Through the Lens of Equality: Eliminating Sex Bias to Improve the Health of Pennsylvania’s Women, which will inform our education and outreach efforts. The study provides important research and data about how ongoing bias against women – in the home, in the workplace, in the classroom, and in the community – negatively impacts women’s health. We see it as a necessity that women’s voices are informed and are heard on issues that are essential to their health and well-being and that of their families.

The question “What if all women voted?” really does set the mind reeling – but in Pennsylvania WomenVote PA will focus our efforts on seeing what happens when more women vote. We believe much will.

This opinion piece appeared in many newspapers throughout Pennsylvania.  Please share this with your friends and remember to vote!

Pay Equity Bill Voted Down in Senate

Nikki Ditto, WLP Summer Intern and Elizabeth Wingfield, Former WLP Intern

On Tuesday June 5^th, the Senate voted down the Paycheck Fairness Act in a largely party-line vote. The bill would have helped to strengthen already existing legislation on gender discrimination in the workplace, but proponents were unable to win the necessary 60 votes in order to pass it.

The Act would have required that employers prove that pay differences are based on qualifications and not on gender. U.S Senator from Pennsylvania, Bob Casey, explained in an article on the Huffington Post that the Paycheck Fairness Act would also help to reduce gender discrimination by:

• Prohibiting employers from punishing employees for sharing salary information with co-workers.
• Making discrimination costly to employers by making those who bring gender discrimination cases eligible for compensatory and punitive damages, as is the case with race and ethnicity discrimination cases.
• Developing new training programs for women and girls on how to negotiate compensation packages and recognizing employers who have eliminated pay disparities.

While the rate of women in the work force has increased, their salaries as compared to their male counterparts have not. As we have blogged about before,  “2010 census data shows women still make only 77 cents to every dollar a man makes. For women of color this discrepancy is even larger. African American women earned only 67.7 cents and Latinas earned 58.7 cents to the male dollar.”  This is all in spite of the fact that women, on average, are more educated than men, and are increasingly acting as dual-earners or sole providers for their families. Pay discrimination for women and minorities is a major problem that has important consequences for families and the economy. 

The Paycheck Fairness act was meant to improve upon previous legislation, like the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that was passed in 2009. Backers of the bill (largely Democrats) said the Act would have closed loopholes in the 1963 Equal Pay Act and that it is necessary to ensure pay equity. Those who opposed the bill (largely Republicans) argued that “they oppose pay discrimination but disagree with the Democrats’ bill.”

Though the Act only got 52 of the 60 votes needed to be passed into law, Sen. Barbara Mikulski, (D-Md), who was the chief sponsor of the bill, said that she would not be deterred and “vowed to return to the bill until it passes.”  Women, it seems, will remain a central topic for both this Congress and in the upcoming presidential campaigns.

To read the entirety of the Paycheck Fairness Act, click here.

Senate Defense Bill Would Allow Women in Combat

Guest Blogger: Elizabeth Wingfield, Former WLP Intern

A proposed measure in the Senate’s National Defense Reauthorization Act would demand that the military come up with a plan to allow women in fight on the frontlines. While the House version of the bill does not include the same measure, a separate bill with the same provision is pending in the lower chamber. The measure allowing women in combat could be added to the House bill when it is meshed with the Senate bill. While the Pentagon recently announced that women are now formally permitted to serve in jobs that would put them in the frontlines, such as serving as a tank mechanic or fire detection specialist, the measure is still needed because women may still not officially serve in combat.

As we have written before, “there is no reason to restrict the role of women in the military” since when women have been asked to perform more dangerous jobs in the military they have exceled in their roles. Not only is there no reason to bar servicewomen from serving in combat positions, but the restriction makes it more difficult for women to be promoted to higher ranks in the military since, as the Huffington Post reports, “battle experience is a key to promotion.” As Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) who proposed the measure said,

Women are already fighting and dying for our country shoulder-to-shoulder with their brothers in uniform on the front lines, but without the formal recognition that is essential for them to advance and obtain the benefits they have earned. Just like it was wrong to discriminate against service members because of whom they love, it is also wrong to deny combat roles to qualified women solely because of their gender.

We hope that the National Defense Authorization Act will include the provision allowing women to serve in combat since women should be given the same opportunities to advance in the military as their male counterparts. We will keep you updated about this issue.

In Remembrance: Illegal Abortion Kills

Tuesday, October 18^th, Pittsburgh pro-choice advocates marched on the office of Senator Jane Orie, one of the PA Senate’s strongest supporters of the dangerous SB 732, which could put most of Pennsylvania’s abortion clinics out of existence by legislating compliance with unnecessary and expensive Ambulatory Surgical Facility (ASF) guidelines. Unlike the lively We’ve Had Enough rally in Harrisburg, the Pittsburgh protest was somber. Its aim was to remind Senator Orie how many women have perished from desperate measures taken when safe, sanely-regulated abortion was not accessible.

The National Organization for Women lists brief biographies for some of these women on their website.  Clara Bell Duval, a Pittsburgh native with five children, died in 1929 from self-abortion with a knitting needle. Geraldine Santoro, separated from her abusive husband and pregnant by another man, tried to perform the procedure in a hotel room with the father of her child, and bled to death. In 1977, soon after the passage of the Hyde Amendment which denied abortion coverage to women on Medicaid, Rosie Jiminez died from a botched illegal abortion, too poor to afford the procedure at a private clinic.

To this list we can now add Karnamaya Mongar, the 41-year-old Nepalese refugee with whose murder the infamous Dr. Kermit Gosnell is charged. Mongar allegedly died from an overdose of anesthesia at the hands of an unlicensed employee at Gosnell’s unsafe, unsanitary, and poorly monitored “Women’s Medical Society.”

Dr. Gosnell  allegedly sold prescription drugs during the day and performed illegal abortions at night, primarily for clients who were poor, immigrants, and women of color. For over 16 years the Health Department ignored complaints about the facility, including a hand-delivered complaint from a doctor at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The Health Department and other regulating agencies had cause to be concerned about Dr. Gosnell’s clinic, but they did not investigate repeated complaints from patients and other providers.

The problem with Dr. Gosnell’s clinic was not the lack of regulations, but the lack of enforcement of those regulations.  The Pennsylvania legislature, rather than improving inspection procedures and ensuring that consumer complaints are appropriately investigated and acted upon, is using Dr. Gosnell as an excuse to push for unnecessary and cumbersome regulations that could effectively close down most freestanding abortion clinics in Pennsylvania.

SB 732, Pennsylvania’s “answer” to Dr. Gosnell’s house of horrors, would require all health facilities that offer abortion care to comply with Ambulatory Surgical Facility regulations. These complicated and expensive regulations have the potential to shut down nearly every freestanding abortion clinic in the state of Pennsylvania at least temporarily, and only those with the resources to redesign their facilities in accordance with ASF regulations – such as quadrupling the size of their operating rooms for no added safety benefit, and installing unnecessary hospital-grade elevators capable of lifting the equivalent of a small car – would be able to reopen. Those surviving clinics would have to increase the cost of an abortion out of reach of many women.

Karnamaya Mongar didn’t die because the elevators in Gosnell’s clinic were too small. She died because the regulations already in place were ignored.  If the cost of a safe, legal abortion increases or the number of safe providers decreases as a result of SB 732, stories like Mongar’s will become a lot more common in our state. Making abortion harder to access for all women is, to paraphrase David Bowie, like fighting fire with gasoline. These regulations are a backdoor tactic to severely limit abortion care, a hypocritical and disingenuous response to the atrocities allegedly committed by Dr. Gosnell. 

The heartbreaking stories of Clara Duval, Geraldine Santoro, Rosie Jiminez and now Karnamaya Mongar send a message that ought to be loud and clear: when safe abortion care is made illegal, unaffordable, or too difficult to access, women who are desperate to end their pregnancies seek other options, as dangerous or unsavory as they might be because the alternative—remaining pregnant—is untenable.   Far too often, those women die. It is our responsibility to remember their lives as we continue to fight for fair, reasonable reproductive health care legislation. Learn more about SB 732 here.

“Chaining” Social Security Would Harm Women

On July 11^th President Obama urged congressional Democrats to make cuts to cost-of-living social security adjustments in return for Republican support for a tax raise. In the words of Maria Freese, Director of Government Relations of the Washington-based National Committee to Protect Social Security and Medicare in an interview with WeNews, “Proposing cuts in a self-financed program paid for by Americans throughout their working lives to get Republicans to close tax loopholes and end tax breaks for the wealthy few is not shared sacrifice.” While this cut in social security would be unfair to everyone, Richard Eskow points out that it would be particularly detrimental to minorities, lower-income people, and women.

Republicans want to replace current cost-of-living allowances (COLA) for social security with a “chained” cost of living index. This formula takes into account that when prices of goods go up, consumers substitute cheaper items for those that have become more costly. Eskow points out how dangerous this reasoning can be:

As a government agency explains, “Pork and beef are two separate CPI item categories. If the price of pork increases while the price of beef does not, consumers might shift away from pork to beef.” So if people can no longer afford pork, they’re spending less. Under a chained-CPI approach cost of living adjustments (COLAs) would then go down….

That’s not a sound way to calculate the overall cost of living. If I can’t afford cable TV and stop watching it, Time Warner’s prices don’t go down. But under this plan, my misfortune also becomes my little contribution to next year’s benefit cut.

How would this work for Social Security? Let’s see: If old people stop buying pork their “chained CPI” benefit will go down. If that forces them to live on catfood, their benefit goes down again…It’s a death spiral. Soon we’ll be calculating the cost of survival, not the cost of living. It’s a process that leads nowhere but down, until even survival is factored out of the equation.

If COLA were “chained,” a woman who received a $1,100 benefit at 65 would receive $56 dollars less per month by age 75. Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security at the National Women’s Law Center told WeNews that by ” 90 that would mean $87 per month [decrease from the benefits received at age 65], an equivalent of 20 weeks of food a year.”

The negative effects of chaining the cost of living adjustments would be particularly detrimental to women “who receive less in benefits on average than men and can least afford the cuts. They live longer than men, too, so they’re more likely to see their benefits dwindle with every year that passes.” Some supporters of chaining COLA argue for a “birthday bump” that would entail small benefit increases after an individual has been retired for twenty years. However, this “bump” would not off-set all of the cuts individuals would have faced before then and would only benefit those who live long enough to receive the increased benefits. Since minorities and low-income people have lower life expectancies than their wealthier, white counterparts this plan would be particularly unfair to these communities.

Social security has not contributed to the national debt and its benefits have not been raised due to COLA in two years. However, some politicians are willing to reduce everyone’s benefits and risk increasing the number of women in poverty by “chaining” social security. We will keep you updated on this issue.

Study Reveals Women Still Not Recognized as Capable Leaders

A recent meta-analysis (integration of a large number of studies on the same subject) by Northwestern University reveals that most people still use gendered stereotypes when thinking about leadership. The consequence of this is that “Women are viewed as less qualified or natural in most leadership roles…and secondly, when women adopt culturally masculine behaviors often required by these roles, they may be viewed as inappropriate or presumptuous.” These biases against women are most likely contributing to the ever-present leadership gap in the U.S.—women still only hold 17% of seats in Congress and in 2008 only 15.7% of corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies were women.

Previous research found that women are perceived as inherently having more “communal” qualities such as being compassionate. Men, on the other hand, were perceived by participants in the studies as inherently having more “agentic” qualities such as being assertive. Research found that it is agentic qualities that are perceived as being an important element of leadership. The Times of India sums up, “Because men fit the cultural stereotype of leadership better than women, they have better access to leadership roles and face fewer challenges in becoming successful in them.” Both female and male participants in the studies that made up the meta-analysis saw men as being inherently better leaders than women.

It is incredibly disheartening that, as Laura Hibbard commented, in an era where “women hold some of the most powerful positions in the United States (see: Hilary Clinton, Secretary of State, Nancy Pelosi, [Former] Speaker of the House, etc.) we still haven’t really changed the way we think about leadership roles and women.” However, the study did show some encouraging trends. The meta-analysis collected data since 1973 so could see if attitudes towards women in leadership are changing over time. Most people still view leadership roles as inherently male but Alice Eagly, professor of psychology and a co-author of the study told Hibbard, “women should be encouraged that leadership is culturally not as extremely masculine as it was in the past…That’s progress because it makes leadership roles more accessible to women and easier to negotiate when in such a role.”

To learn more about the effort to see more women in leadership positions and to find out how you can help in that effort, visit The White House Project’s website.

Stay-at-Home Parents Now Need to Ask Spouse for Credit Card

The Credit Card Accountability Responsibility and Disclosure Act, signed into law by President Barack Obama in May 2009, was intended “to put strong protections in place for consumers. Unfair rate increases, late-fee traps and bombarding credit card offers on college campuses were key targets of the legislation.” However, the Federal Reserve Board recently decided that the Act mandates that credit card companies only take individual income into account when deciding when to accept someone’s request for a credit card. This decision was meant to keep college students from going into credit card debt they could not afford to pay off but it also has the consequence of disenfranchising stay-at-home parents, 88% of whom are women.

Anisha Sekar, the chief content manager and credit card analyst for NerdWallet.com said that this would mean that a stay-at-home parent would have to get his or her spouse’s co-signature before attaining a credit card. This is despite the fact that a stay-at-home parent is “likely to make the household’s financial decisions, from paying for groceries to saving for college to dealing with medical bills.” It also ignores that, as Sekar says, “a stay-at-home mom works just as hard as (or harder than) her spouse-she just doesn’t file her income with the IRS.”

In response to outcry from women’s rights advocates, the Federal Reserve stated that “the individual-income provision may be ‘inconvenient or impractical,’ but that such restrictions are necessary to prevent reckless lending and borrowing.” The “necessity” of not allowing stay-at-home parents an equal footing in financial decisions in the household can contribute to the negative psychological effect of “relying completely on a spouse for such an essential part of adult finances.” It “also renders stay-at-home parents financially vulnerable in the case of divorce. If a stay-at-home mom’s spouse is irresponsible, her credit score will fall-and she can’t repair it without her own line of credit.”

In the worst case scenario, the Federal Reserve’s decision will play a role in financial abuse. Financial abuse is a factor in 98% of abusive relationships.  Rene Renick of the National Network to End Domestic Violence said “I can’t tell you the number of women who’ve said, ‘I stayed in the relationship longer than I wanted, or came back, [because] I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to feed my kids,’” says Renick. “[The Fed's regulations] will limit a woman’s ability to have access to assets on her own. Batterers will more than likely use this to … keep her entrapped in the relationship.” U.S. Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney and Louise Slaughter said that not only may not having a credit card contribute to one’s abuse, but the ability to attain one independently of one’s spouse could be incredibly important when trying to escape an abusive relationship. They wrote, “Women trapped in abusive marriages may be unable to work due to a controlling spouse…the availability of an independent credit card may represent her best chance at establishing independence and a path out of a dangerous relationship.”

You can read more about the unfortunate consequences of the Federal Reserve’s decision to ban stay-at-home parents from attaining their own credit card here.

Photo from here.

Tradeswomen Face Discrimination, Increased Safety Risks

Womensenews.org  recently published an expose on the plight of women in construction trades, which includes such occupations as carpenter, electrician, painter, plumber, and equipment operator. The piece revealed that due to discrimination from multiple sources, tradeswomen face increased safety risks.

One obvious and dangerous source of bias against women is simply how tools are manufactured. Professional-grade work tools, even ones that are advertized as being ergonomically safe, are built to fit the average man’s hand size, not the average woman’s. Elizabeth Fox, a former electrician who studied with chiropractors, physical therapists and orthopedic surgeons at The National Labor College in Maryland, said that “tools that don’t fit properly can trigger pressure points, damage blood vessels and lead to injury.” Indeed, Mary Watters, director of communication for the Center for Construction Research and Training told Womensenews.org: “Tools just don’t fit women’s bodies. Even their gloves don’t fit. It raises the risk that tools can slip, and to compensate for tools and gloves not fitting, women have to apply more pressure than do men. Repeating motions day in and day out can cause severe injury.”

Besides tools, women also have to deal with workplaces and other pieces of equipment that are not set up to accommodate them. The number one cause of worksite fatalities is falling from a height, but standard harnesses are not made for women and cut them at their breasts. Similarly, though federal sanitations regulations require that separate toilet facilities are provided for each gender,  Laura Boatman, project coordinator for the State Building and Construction Trades Council, a  California statewide labor organization, said that women’s facilities are often missing from worksites or located at a much less convenient place than men’s. The consequence of this is that “female workers sometimes report having to jog 20 minutes to reach a facility. [Project manager of the Equality Works program at Legal Momentum Francine] Jacobson added that a lack of or inadequate facilities cause frequent bladder infections in women.”

In addition to equipment and worksites that are not built for them, tradeswomen also face blatant discrimination by their employers and coworkers, which can lead to both emotional and physical harm. The Equal Rights Advocates Tradeswomen Advocacy Project reports that women in construction trades face discrimination at four levels: “women are denied access to trades apprenticeship programs, union skip over female employees when sending workers to jobs, many employers simply do not hire women,” and “employers engage in and/or tolerate discriminatory behavior.” Some “discriminatory behavior” includes sexual harassment and hazing. While the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has statues against sexual harassment, Francine A. Moccio, author of the 2009 book Live Wire: Women and Brotherhood in the Electrical Industry told Womensenews.org that enforcement of these statues has weakened over time. Moccio also shared personal stories of tradeswomen who have endured cruel, dangerous hazing by their coworkers. She said she has “heard many, many stories…of men setting women up to get hurt, letting them get electrocuted, urinating on their toolboxes.” Additionally, because women have less on-the-job training due to contractors’ discriminatory hiring practices, Boatman says, “Women are given tasks that they aren’t trained to do and often will be assigned tasks that two men will handle . . . Because they want to prove themselves, they will do it and be injured.”

The discrimination that tradeswomen face at work puts them at an increased risk of being harmed, both physically and emotionally. To learn more about the plight of tradeswomen, you can read the entire Womensenews.org expose here.

New International Treaty Will Protect Domestic Workers

On June 16^th The International Labor Organization (ILO) adopted the Convention on Domestic Workers, a treaty which will guarantee the labor rights of domestic workers around the globe. “Domestic workers” includes any workers who work in or for a household or households such as nannies, chauffeurs, and housekeepers. Human Rights Watch states that of the estimated 50 to 100 million domestic workers worldwide, “the vast majority are women and girls.” 7.5% of female employees worldwide work in the domestic sphere.

Many countries do not provide the protections to domestic workers that they afford those employed in other fields. For this reason, domestic workers face “a wide range of grave abuses and labor exploitation.” It is believed that in many countries these human rights violations are allowed to continue due to a lack of legal protections exacerbated by discrimination against women and girls.

“Discrimination against women and poor legal protections have allowed abuses against domestic workers to flourish in every corner of the world,” said Nisha Varia, senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “This new convention is a long overdue recognition of housekeepers, nannies, and caregivers as workers who deserve respect and equal treatment under the law.”

The new treaty demands that domestic workers have some of the basic labor rights that those who work in other spheres already enjoy. These rights include: “reasonable hours of work, weekly rest of at least 24 consecutive hours, a limit on in-kind payment, clear information on terms and conditions of employment, as well as respect for fundamental principles and rights at work including freedom of association and the right to collective bargaining.”

The treaty applies to all domestic workers, including migrant workers and child laborers who are especially vulnerable to labor rights abuses. Migrant workers, who compose a large proportion of those employed in the domestic sphere, “are often at heightened risk of exploitation due to national policies that link workers’ immigration status to individual employers as well as excessive recruitment fees, language barriers, and employers’ confiscation of passports.” The Convention on Domestic Workers demands that migrant workers receive a contract that is enforceable in the country in which they are employed and calls for national governments to strengthen international cooperation.

The Treaty also helps children, who make up nearly 30% of all domestic workers worldwide. Prior to the convention, many national governments excluded domestic work from child labor laws, meaning that some children worked long hours at young ages. The treaty sets a minimum age for domestic work and ensures that work does not interfere with the education of children above that age. 

The United States played a leading role in advocating for strong protections of domestic workers in the treaty and was one of the 396 out of 475 delegates who voted for the convention. However, it is unlikely that the U.S. will ratify the convention as labor laws are primarily regulated by states and this convention would require numerous federal regulations. This is unfortunate as currently New York is the only state which has enacted a domestic workers’ bill of rights.

But despite the fact that the convention is unlikely to change federal law in the U.S., the increased awareness that the treaty will bring could prove beneficial.

The importance of this convention is to bring the plight of domestic workers into the national spotlight, not necessarily changing U.S. laws, said Ana Avendano, the assistant to the president at the AFL-CIO, who also participated in the ILO conference. In many parts of the world, domestic workers are explicitly excluded from labor laws and standards, she said.

“What happens to many workers in most cases is already illegal,” Avendano said. “When these workers complain about their conditions, now people are going to listen”

The International Labor Organization’s Convention on Domestic Workers has the potential to give labor protections to millions of domestic workers around the world, the majority of which are women and girls. While the convention will not necessarily change U.S. law, it will likely increase awareness about the issue of labor exploitation and encourage people to respect and utilize existing laws which protect domestic workers. While the convention will not eradicate human rights violations of domestic workers, the international recognition of the need for domestic workers to be afforded the same rights as other workers is a step in the right direction. You can read more about the convention here.