MOROCCO: Report exposes abuse of child domestic workers

Summary: A report by Human Rights Watch found that some child domestic workers – who are overwhelmingly girls – toil for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for as little as US$11 a month.

(Rabat) – Girls as young as 8 endure physical abuse and work long hours for little pay as domestic workers in Morocco.

The 73-page report, “Lonely Servitude: Child Domestic Labor in Morocco,” found that some child domestic workers – who are overwhelmingly girls – toil for 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, for as little as US$11 a month. Some girls told Human Rights Watch that their employers frequently beat and verbally abused them, denied them education, and sometimes refused them adequate food.

The Moroccan government has reduced child labor rates and increased school enrollment over the last decade. But it should strictly enforce laws prohibiting child domestic labor below age 15 by applying penalties to employers and recruiters, creating effective mechanisms to identify and remove underage children from employers’ households, and monitoring working conditions for domestic workers ages 15 to 17, said Human Rights Watch.

“Girls are being exploited, abused, and forced to work long hours for extremely low wages,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Morocco has taken important steps to reduce child labor, but it needs to take targeted actions to protect these child domestic workers and enforce the law.”

Human Rights Watch first investigated the use of child domestic labor in Morocco in 2005.  Interviews for the follow-up study indicated that the number of children working as domestic workers has dropped in recent years, and that public education campaigns and increased media attention have raised public awareness of the hazards of child domestic labor.

The report draws on field research conducted in April, May, and July 2012, in Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech, and the Imintanoute region of Chichaoua province. Human Rights Watch interviewed 20 former child domestic workers, as well as government officials, lawyers, teachers, and representatives of nongovernmental and international organizations. Fifteen of the former child domestic workers had begun working before age 12; all but four were still under 18 at the time of the interviews.

Further Information

pdf: http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/11/15/morocco-abuse-child-domestic-workers

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