Building Global Estimates of Child Domestic Workers: A New Social Indicator of Human Rights Violations
Child Domestic Workers (CDWs) are persons under 18 engaged in household tasks (outside their family) in hazardous and exploitative conditions. Typically trafficked to a third party home, they are unpaid, live-in laborers. CDW has been identified by the United Nations and the International Labor Organization as one of the worst forms of child labor. CDW is a human rights violation with substantial negative consequences, including disrupted child and adolescent development and physical, sexual and emotional abuse. CDW is fueled by poverty, family disruptions, and patterns of social stratification and discrimination, and is often supported by a degree of cultural tolerance. Social exclusion of CDWs is reinforced by their physical exclusion as most are kept hidden within households. The literature is largely silent on CDW; social work intervention is impeded by the lack of knowledge about the scope of the problem. Given the dearth of information about the prevalence of CDW, this study builds a global estimate of the extent of CDW.
Method:
This research utilizes a quantitative, comparative approach to calculate a global statistic of the number of CDWs. An extensive search of the literature identified 60 empirical reports to draw from, comprised of governmental and non-governmental (28) and academic (32) sources of local and regional data on the prevalence of CDWs in 23 countries from the last 20 years. These estimates were developed by international and local researchers from surveys of CDWs, collected through local interventions such as drop-in centers. Estimates from each source were cross-checked, duplicate reports were omitted, and conflicting evidence was reconciled by using the lower estimate. A global CDW rate per 100,000 people was calculated for each country and region for which data were available. No estimates were made for countries where data were unavailable.
Results:
Data analysis produced an estimate of 2,731,124,538 CDWs worldwide. The global CDW rate per 100,000 is 270. By region, Asia has a CDW rate of 20 per 100,000, South America 159 per 100,000, Africa 1,116 per 100,000, and Central America 2,304 per 100,000. For countries with data sufficient to calculate CDW rates per 100,000, Senegal had the highest at 2,403 and Vietnam had the lowest at 2. Malawi had the median at 203 per 100,000. Data revealed significant gaps in the empirical evidence; data were unavailable for North America and Europe.
Conclusions/Implications:
This research produced global estimates for the scope of CDW, significantly advancing knowledge about this understudied international human rights violation. The CDW rate is a social indicator that can be used by policymakers, advocates, and researchers to develop interventions. The CDW rate can also serve as a guide for subsequent research; however this analysis was limited by the paucity of available evidence. Future research should concentrate on filling the gaps by developing methodologies to strengthen existing estimates and to develop CDW rates for countries without current estimates. Additional research should also gather knowledge about existing interventions serving CDWs. Increased information about CDWs worldwide will increase social work’s potential for preventing and reducing this human rights violation.