COVID-19 pandemic, a war to win: assessing its impact on the domestic work sector in Nigeria

ABSTRACT

This article examines the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the work conditions of domestic workers in Nigeria. We use four indicators – earnings, access to social protection, working conditions and labour protections to provide a nuanced assessment on the impact of the pandemic on domestic workers. Domestic work is an important aspect of productive labour and an indispensable factor that contributes to the well-being of households and the economy. Indeed, the enormous contribution of this sector to societies has been further exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, while domestic workers are lauded as essential workers, their work remains extremely vulnerable to exploitation and human rights violations, and the pandemic has aggravated this situation. In the results, we find that while many domestic workers did not lose their jobs, their earning power dropped because of low wages in the sector. Furthermore, only 6% of survey respondents reported having access to the government’s social protection measures. The findings of this study emphasises the need for the development of a regulatory model which considers the realities of the domestic work sector. Data used in this article draws from questionnaires administered on 220 domestic workers across four geo-political zones of Nigeria.

KEYWORDS:

• Domestic workers
• COVID-19
• decent work
• Nigeria

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. This study was conducted by the World Bank and the National Bureau of Statistics and found that the lockdown significantly impacted on the employment and income of respondents. This impact was mostly felt in the commerce, service and agriculture sectors. Almost 80% of the respondents reported that their households’ total income decreased. However, since the lockdown has been eased, more Nigerians are working. It has been suggested that this increase may be due to ‘“an added worker” effect where households boost their overall labour supply to cope with negative economic shocks’. This boost in labour supply was higher for women.

2. the definition of a domestic servant is consistent with the characterisation of domestic work given under article 1 of the Convention 189. Nonetheless, the use of the phrase ‘domestic servant” has colonial and ideological undertones. The Received English Law is one of the major sources of Nigerian labour law (Mwalimu 2005; Nwokpoku et al. 2018). Until the mid-twentieth century, domestic workers in England were referred to as ‘domestic servants’ under the English law (Albin 2012). These workers were basically slaves, required to serve their masters/mistresses around the clock and were excluded from protective legislation. This made these workers disadvantaged and vulnerable to exploitation. While progress has been made in extending protection to domestic workers in the United Kingdom, Nigerian domestic workers remain bound by the shackles of the colonial inheritance. Similarly, within the patriarchal context of Nigeria, domestic work is considered the responsibility and natural duty of women, and thus not requiring remuneration. The increased participation of women in the labour market has merely shifted the burden of domestic work to less empowered women.

3. Recently, a national social protection bill – the National Social Security Policy for Inclusiveness, Solidarity and Sustainable Peace and Prosperity, was drafted and submitted to the National Assembly for enactment. This bill aimed to include informal workers under social protection mechanisms. However, it has not been passed possibly because of the lack of political support.

4. Basic education in Nigeria is 6 years primary education and three years junior secondary school education: section 15 Free Universal Basic Education Act 2004.

5. This can be deduced from the 2011 Socio-economic survey: sectoral wages and emoluments which indicated average wages across sectors in 2010 ranged from NGN19798 in wholesale and retail to NGN34544 in hotels and restaurants and NGN80144 in cement manufacturing. This statistics have not been updated.

6. Nigeria has ratified both this convention and C105 - Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105). Through this ratification, in terms of Article 1 of C29, Nigeria undertook to ‘to suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms within the shortest possible period’. As this was signed almost 60 years ago, it can be argued that the State has reasonably exceeded this timeline. Apart from the constitutional provision, the corresponding provisions which give effect to C29 are found in Section 365 of the Criminal Code-deprivation of liberty, section 369 of the Criminal Code (slavery) and Section 270 of the penal code-prohibition of forced labour.

7. See ILO Indicators of Forced Labour https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/—ed_norm/—declaration/documents/publication/wcms_203832.pdf.

8. https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO1205/S00021/12-by-12-campaign-uruguay-first-country-to-ratify-c189.htm: https://www.ituc-csi.org/domestic-workers-12–12.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Abigail Osiki

Abigail Osiki currently lectures in the Mercantile and Labour Law department at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), South Africa. She is also a research associate at the Centre for Transformative Regulation of Work, UWC, Cape Town. Abigail’s research background is in working poverty, non-standard forms of work, sustainable development and policy reform, witha specific interest in the informal economy in Sub-Saharan Africa. She was formerly apostdoctoral fellow at the Fairwork Project. She holds a PhD in labour law from the University of Cape Town.

Hassan Sadiq

Hassan Sadiq is a lecturer at the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at Stellenbosch University. He is primarily interested in research that deals with the development and appropriate applications of statistical models in various field of (social) scientific research.

Prisca Osiki

Prisca Osiki is a program manager and project management office lead based in Toronto Canada. Her areas of work span healthcare, not-for profit and education. She dedicates most of her time supporting executives, subject matter experts and principal investigators in bringing projects and research ideas to life. she has delivered successful projects worth over $3M. She has an MSc in medicine which fuels her drive to deliver projects with empirical and design thinking frameworks.

Vincent Oniga

Vincent Oniga is a legal practitioner with over a decade experience in litigation and Alternative Dispute Resolution and cooperate governance in Nigeria. He is the manging partner of Avolon Legal Practice and a consulting partner for Echelon Solicitors & Advocates, providing a range of legal services and expert advice to clients including international development agencies, government institutions and private organisations.