Migrant domestic workers, vulnerability and the law: immigration and employment laws in Cyprus and Spain

Abstract

The intersection of gender, welfare and immigration regimes has been one of the main focus of a rich scholarship on paid domestic work in Europe. This article brings into the discussion the nexus of employment and immigration law regimes to reflect on the role of legal regulation in structuring and reducing the vulnerability of domestic workers. I analyse this nexus by looking at the cases of Cyprus and Spain, two states falling under the cluster of Southern Mediterranean welfare regimes, that share certain characteristics in terms of immigration regimes, but have substantially different employment law regulation models. The first part sketches the debate on the employment law regulation of domestic work. The second part starts by giving an overview of the immigration regimes of Cyprus and Spain in relation to migrant domestic workers and then proceeds to analyse the two countries' models and substance of employment law regulation in domestic work. The comparison of these two divergent approaches informs the debate on how the legal regulation of domestic work should be best structured. In Spain there have been recent dynamic legislative changes in the employment law regulation of domestic work. The final part of the article traces these changes and reflects on why such processes have not taken place in Cyprus. Keywords: Paid domestic labour, vulnerability, models of regulation, legal reform, Cyprus, Spain Migración, empleo doméstico y vulnerabilidad: modelos de regulación jurídica en Chipre y España RESUMENLas relaciones que se establecen entre las regulaciones y disciplinas que afectan al género, las políticas sociales y laborales y la inmigración han constituido uno de los centros de un rico debate doctrinal sobre el trabajo doméstico remunerado en Europa. El presente artículo pretende analizar el nexo entre la regulación laboral y la de inmigración para reflexionar sobre el papel que una regulación jurídica puede desempeñar en la reducción de la vulnerabilidad de los trabajadores domésticos. El análisis de la relación entre inmigración y regulación laboral se centra en el estudio de Chipre y España, dos estados que pueden encuadrarse en la tipología de modelo mediterráneo de estados de bienestar y que comparten ciertas características en sus regímenes jurídicos de regulación de la inmigración, pero donde aparecen importantes diferencias en la regulación laboral. La primera parte introduce el debate sobre la regulación laboral del trabajo doméstico. La segunda parte describe el panorama de los regímenes jurídicos de la inmigración en Chipre y España en relación con los trabajadores domésticos inmigrantes para continuar con el análisis de ambos modelos y de la regulación sustancial relevante en materia de empleo doméstico. Mediante la comparación de estos dos modelos divergentes se construye el debate sobre cómo elaborar de manera óptima la regulación del trabajo doméstico. En el caso español, en el marco de una dinámica de reformas laborales, han existido recientes cambios legislativos en la...

A Qualitative Study of Female Migrant Domestic Workers’ Experiences of and Responses to Work-Based Sexual Violence in Cyprus

“…Our findings also reflect recent work reporting on the state of migrant domestic work in Cyprus [8,25]. Employment and immigration visa requirements such as "tied visa" schemes and shared accommodation with employers increase women's vulnerability to sexual violence [26] and their ability to escape from dangerous situations and achieve retribution through controlling women's mobility and associations [4,7]. Legal frameworks [27], in combination with embedded social stereotypes, institutional racism, and discrimination [17,28], made it almost impossible for women to find justice and retribution.…”

“…The Human Rights Watch, among others, has reported on domestic workers' exploitative working conditions, with excessively long and often unpaid hours of work, restrictions on freedom of movement, and contact with others [4,5] in what Jureidini and Moukarbel aptly describe as "contract slavery" [6]. In the literature, authors have reported on the increased risk for abuse faced by domestic workers (e.g., [7][8][9]), whilst the sexualised nature of domestic work, the heightened power imbalance between employer and employee, and the confinement of work within the private sphere places women at particular risk for workplace sexual harassment and assaults [10][11][12]. A high incidence of sexual harassment is reported among domestic workers, especially those living in their employer's residence [11].…”

Exploitation, Harassment and Violence: Lived Experiences of Women Paid Domestic Workers in India

“…Women PDWs continue to be debarred from basic working provisions such as maximum work time, remuneration for overtime, and security in relation to night work (Albin & Mantouvalou, 2012; Mundlak & Shamir, 2011; Pavlou, 2016). Mundlak and Shamir (2014) discuss the lack of unity among the PDWs to organize themselves collectively in the traditional sense, such as through trade unions, rendering their attempts futile.…”