Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-05-11-Speech-3-694-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20110511.38.3-694-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Madam President, I, too, would like to congratulate Ms Berès for taking the initiative on this oral question and resolution. I would also like to thank the Commissioner for his answer. It is all too rare that we get a very specific response from Commissioners to questions in an oral question.
My group very much welcomes the proposal from the ILO for the Convention and the recommendation on domestic workers. We are aware that at least 20 of our own Member States have already commented on the draft and been actively involved in this. We look forward to early ratification by those Member States and, indeed, some interesting implementation.
People have talked very much about how this group of workers is particularly vulnerable. A lot of the work is done behind closed doors; it is invisible. Often, the workers themselves are isolated, and access to trade unions is often very difficult in this situation. Quite often, if you are taken on as a live-in employee, you can be seen as being on call 24/7. We know in this House that on-call working is a very controversial issue and something that we do not particularly welcome.
As has been said, domestic work is often undervalued, or seen as traditional women’s work that ‘anybody can do’, but we have also made the point that a lot of it is actually quite skilled. It can quite often involve nursing care and various aspects of child development. Domestic workers often occupy a real position of trust. While many employers value that, there are only too many who do not. For example, in the UK we have seen a recent case of somebody actually ending up with a prison sentence on a charge of trafficking for domestic servitude. The young woman involved lost four years of her life to her employer, who received a nine-month sentence. So we need to look at how we identify that form of trafficking.
Migrant female workers are very vulnerable indeed. We have come across cases, for example, of workers entering the country with diplomats and having their passport taken away; people in that situation have virtually no freedom, have no access to assistance and do not know about their rights.
I want to raise one issue concerning Article 17 in the proposed Convention, which is about the role of agencies. I think this is something that we really should be looking at at European level because, increasingly, it is being seen as a weak link in many of the issues that we are facing."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples