June 16th, 2017 is Domestic Workers International Day. It marks the sixth anniversary of the 189 Convention on Domestic Workers which passed in 2011 during the 100th session of the International Labor Organization. This landmark document improved working conditions for domestic workers in the 23 countries that have ratified the agreement. The United States and Brazil have not yet.
Today, June 15, 2017, marks the fifth anniversary of DACA, the deferred action program that changed the lives of almost 800,000 young students across the nation.
The year 2017 marks the beginning of a new struggle in the lives of women, blacks, children, families, immigrants, and GBLTQ people. Perhaps, never before we felt so deeply the need to collectively stand up and voice our determination to fight against any form of injustice and oppression.
Domestic workers make up about 75% of the Brazilian Women’s Group’s membership. On this June 16th, we stand tall with all of the domestic workers and immigrant women as we have done for the last 22 years.