Earlier this month, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) released a paper on the exploitation of migrant women working in private houses across the EU.

This paper, titled “Out of sight: migrant women exploited in domestic work, describes the particularly exploitative working conditions experienced by 51 migrant women – both EU and non-EU nationals – who worked as domestic workers in selected EU Member States between 2013 and 2017 and outlines risk factors that lead to severe labour exploitation of domestic workers and fundamental rights abuses.

These stories indicate that, seven years on from FRA’s first report on domestic workers in 2011, little has changed in terms of the risks and experiences of severe labour exploitation domestic workers in the EU face.

The paper is the first of three publications based on exploited workers’ first-hand accounts of their experiences of severe labour exploitation. It presents opinions about how EU Member States can counteract risk factors.

Following the Migration Network Meeting hosted last month in Rome, Eurodiaconia is now working to develop new Guidelines for best practices for a gender-sensitive approach to migration from a diaconal perspective. The Guidelines, representing the last step of Eurodiaconia policy work on Migration, will be available soon: stay tuned on our website and social media channels.

To know more about the paper on migrant women and domestic work, please read FRA publication.