ISSN 2039-2117 (online) ISSN 2039-9340 (print) Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences MCSER Publishing, Rome-Italy Vol 5 No 8 May 2014 672 Emancipating Domestic Workers: Challenges, Interventions and Prospects Kola O. Odeku Faculty of Management and Law, School of Law, University of Limpopo, South Africa Email: kooacademics@gmail.com Doi:10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n8p672 Abstract Undoubtedly, domestic work falls under the ambit of employment and as such, there are people, who will, based on one reason or another engage in it and perform the job. More importantly, national and international instruments in some countries have been put in place to specifically recognise and protect domestic workers and the jobs they do. However, in spite of this, domestic workers are still being violated and abused by employers in various ways. This therefore, raises the issues whether they have, despite various interventions been emancipated or not? Against this background, this paper seeks to look at the challenges hindering emancipation in spite of the interventions that have been made to improve the standard of the employees in the sector. Keywords: Domestic work force, Discrimination, Wages , Women and Children. Interventions. 1. Introduction A large number of domestic workers are women mostly from developing countries (le Roux, 2013). In South Africa, domestic work force is (Klasen and Woolard, 2009) predominantly dominated by black women (Gaitskell et al. 1983). Confirming this assertion, Gaitskell et al. (1983) write “domestic service has long been a major sector of the South African labour market, for black women.” The reason why majority of the black women engage in domestic works and services is not farfetched. The brutal Apartheid regime that existed before the advent of constitutional democracy in South Africa disadvantaged the black people and placed restrictions on the types of jobs they were eligible to engage in (Wing and de Carvalho 1995). Hence, they resort to domestic labour being the only job that does not require any skill to venture into. Towards this end, most of them were exploited and had no legal protections other than the common law, they worked under terrible and dehumanizing conditions and were also subjected to various racial and sexism abuses (Cole, 1992). They were denied and deprived of ample education that would have emancipated them and placed them on the same footing with their white counterparts (Fiske and Ladd, 2004). As a result of this denial, domestic workers have no other hope of prospects for decent jobs or accommodation except to work as domestic workers, for the house holders and perform undesirable dirty jobs (Ally, 2011). Sometimes called house maids, they earn meager non-living wages as income and provide services including but not limited to looking and caring for their employer’s children, acting as gardener, cleaning, cooking and providing other services (Kilbride et al. 2006). Sometimes some of them have no roofs over their heads hence they accepted the accommodation incentives offered by the masters to live in the space in the backyard rooms, and permanently become the family maids (Ginsburg, 2000). These and other sources of disempowerments were used by the regime to suppress the black majority and made them ordinary citizens in their fatherland (Clark and Worger, 2013). In order to fend for themselves and family, one of the attractive jobs available to them was to work as domestic workers where they will have to be subordinate to and serve the masters and the madams (Ally, 2011). Even with the advent of nascent democracy, the situation of domestic workers has only changed with regard to issues of wages but abuses, maltreatment and unfair labour practices are still prevalent (Atkinson, 2007). Magwaza (2008) study revealed that “although domestic workers comprise a significant portion of the working class…despite the fact that more than one million people are employed as domestic workers in private households. Women dominate this sector of the labour market and this may have contributed to shunning of the domestic sector.” In South Africa, the advent of democracy gave everyone the right to a fair labour practice (Govender, 2006.). However, to a large extent, despite constitutional mandate compelling fair labour treatment and insisting on the dignity for all including vulnerable workers such as domestic workers, and other pieces of legislation regulating domestic works, domestic workers (in particular, those previously disadvantaged and deprived from the informal settlements and rural areas) are still faced with contemptuous discriminations of all sorts wherever they find themselves (du Toit, 2013). To the