Domestic Workers' Human Rights at the Nexus of International Conventions and Civil Society: A Comparative Analysis of International Dimensions of Social Reproduction

In this paper, we examine the ways that gender regimes governing domestic workers sit at the nexus of domestic and international politics, using a cross-national dataset of policies on domestic workers combined with case studies of India and Chile. As intersectionally- marginalized workers, domestic workers often fail to benefit from more general policy reforms aimed at improving conditions for women workers or for low-income workers in the informal sector. Domestic workers have organized alongside their feminist and labor movement allies to demand policy reforms to recognize their work and extend labor protections to workers. In so doing, they have leaned on the support of international conventions on domestic work, conventions that help workers both in bringing pressure on their own governments and in representing legal standing and recognition for a group whose work is too often invisible, overlooked, and undervalued. Our analysis shows that domestic protest and international protocols combine to prompt better policies for domestic workers. We conclude by considering the political potential of a strategy involving domestic protest and an appeal to international institutions for other intersectionally-marginalized groups.