There are approximately 53 million domestic workers worldwide, many of whom are migrant workers and most of whom are women. Domestic workers do essential work: they provide care for children and elderly people and they support the households of their employers and their own families. Yet many countries have failed to properly protect their labour and human rights. #OurHands is a social media campaign that aims to inform domestic workers of their rights as enshrined in ILO Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, a landmark instrument that recognizes domestic work as work and that domestic workers are workers who have the same rights as all other workers. The campaign aims to reach to domestic workers through social media and encourage them to share know-your-rights materials with other domestic workers who do not have access to social media. Informing domestic workers is a crucial step in enabling domestic workers to mobilise in collaboration with domestic workers groups and to act collectively to ensure that their rights are protected and upheld. The campaign also aims to mobilize wider solidarity from other groups and supporters by calling for the rights of domestic workers. Why #OurHands? #OurHands means that empowering and protecting the rights of domestic workers is a collective responsibility. We aim to create an enabling environment for domestic workers to articulate their rights, organise themselves,  negotiate their terms of employment, and participate in social dialogue that concerns them.

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#OurHands is part of Migrant Forum in Asia and Christian Aid’s In Their Lifetime project, a three-year advocacy project that aims to put domestic workers at the centre of work to ratify ILO convention C189 in the Middle East and to be in the forefront of policy and practice change.