Domestic workers petition Kadaga over Employment amendment Bill

By Mary Asujo

The Domestic workers under the Domestic Workers Association Uganda have petitioned the speaker of parliament seeking parliament urgent passing of the Employment Amendment bill.

The house helpers say the 10th parliament should pass the employment Amendment bill before its term expires in May this year.

While presenting the petition to the speaker, Rt Hon Rebecca Kadaga, the Association secretary Florence Athieno said that the domestic workers have not been legally recognized and regulated which gives lee way to opportunists to violate the rights of domestic workers.

She said that the current provisions of the Employment Act 2006 cannot adequately promote and protect the rights of domestic workers because of the hidden and invisible nature of domestic work.

She stated that the existing employment Act leaves out domestic workers to the effect that no permit is required for a person or company to recruit and place a domestic servant and servant and non-manual laborers.

Athieno said that this has led to exploitation of women and youths working as domestic workers in the country.

She reported that 14% 0f domestic workers are subjected to sexual harassment by their bosses or their master’s family members including facing unlawful terminations and dismissals from work and at times sent away from work in night hours.

She said that sexual abuse is one of the abuses faced by domestic workers and having this law will ensure their protection. The petitioners also appealed to parliament to fast track the enactment of the Sexual Offenses Bill which they say will go a long way to curb violations of these rights.

While receiving the petition, The speaker of parliament Rebecca Kadaga assured the petitioners that the employment Amendment bill which is still before the legal committee will be passed before the 10th parliament end its term in May.

The 2019 bill to amend the Employment Act, 2006 is moving to op­er­a­tionalise the pro­vi­sions of Ar­ti­cle 40 of the Con­sti­tu­tion of the Re­pub­lic of Uganda to all cat­e­gories of work­ers in Uganda. The Bill specif­i­cally make pro­vi­sion for the reg­u­la­tion of em­ploy­ment of do­mes­tic work­ers and ca­sual em­ploy­ees in Uganda so as to im­prove their work­ing con­di­tions; to pro­vide for com­pul­sory reg­is­tra­tion and li­cens­ing of re­cruit­ment agen­cies for do­mes­tic work­ers and non-man­ual la­bor­ers; to pro­vide for an ex­plicit for­mula for cal­cu­la­tion of sev­er­ance pay and to re­move the con­di­tions at­tached to pay­ment of sev­er­ance pay.

It also seeks to pro­vide for the re­cruit­ment and em­ploy­ment of mi­grant work­ers in Uganda and Uganda Mi­grant Work­ers abroad; to pro­vide for scope of sex­ual ha­rass­ment in em­ploy­ment; to pro­vide for the pro­tec­tion of work­ing breast feed­ing moth­ers; to re­quire em­ploy­ers to put in place poli­cies and fa­cil­i­ties for breast feed­ing moth­ers; to pro­vide for the con­ver­sion of ca­sual em­ploy­ment to term con­tract; to pro­vide for the em­ploy­ment of vol­un­teers.