IDWF Statement on the International Day of Transgender Visibility
IDWF Statement on the International Day of Transgender Visibility
Equitable Access to Rights and Freedom from Violence for Transgender Domestic Workers
It is no novelty that domestic work has been historically feminized and confined within the privacy of individual households, burdening the women who had to single-handedly carry the necessary labor of reproducing lives and livelihoods. Today, as we deconstruct gender, we understand the differential complications on the wellbeing, health, education, and access to labor rights and human rights of domestic workers not only based on their race, class, caste, ethnicity, religious background, marital and maternity status, migration, and documentation status, but also in terms of the multilayered gendered oppression they face when they are transgender workers.
On the day International Day of Transgender visibility, we honor the achievements and essential contributions of transgender people in the multiple fights they are going through. We reiterate the necessity to address the disproportionately high levels of oppression and discrimination faced by transgender workers, as they are subjected to arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention, imprisonment, torture, and other forms of violence. The work environment is a fundamental space that is indivisible from domestic workers’ fight for justice, and we therefore call for the equitable access to employment opportunities free from discrimination and harassment based on sexual orientation and/or gender identity.
Domestic workers come from all walks of life, their struggles intersectional, and their liberation intertwined. As we amplify the voices of domestic workers everywhere, as we push governments, employers, and stakeholders to make sure our vision for inclusive workplaces free from violence becomes a reality, through the ratification and implementation of the ILO Domestic Workers Convention 189 and the Convention on Harassment and Violence in the World of Work 190, we insist that no domestic worker should be left behind.
“We have a historical challenge: to make visible that this world is not only for men and women, but also for people of other genders, and that the union movement par excellence should not be exclusive. The mission of the union movement is to fight for the respect of the rights of all, men, women, and people of other genders beyond the binary. For this reason, FETRADOMOV’s motto is labor inclusion. On this day, we reaffirm our commitment to the fight for non-discrimination and equality,”
says Andrea Morales, President of FETRADOMOV, Nicaragua, and representative of the International Domestic Workers Federation for Latin America.
In these difficult times, with injustice exponentially increasing on those most vulnerable, recognition, solidarity, and unity are the solution. A world where domestic workers are respected and protected, with the various aspects of their identities, is an uncompromisable demand.
