Why domestic work remains Kenya's most exploited labour

Domestic workers showcase their tools during Labour Day celebrations at Uhuru Gardens, Nairobi, on May 1, 2025. [File, Standard] Long before offices open and traffic clogs major roads, thousands of women are already awake, preparing other people's children, packing school bags and rushing them to bus pick-up points. They spend the day scrubbing floors, cooking meals and watching over younger children as their employers go about their lives. All this while their own sons and daughters grow up miles away, left in rural homes or with relatives. The labour of house helps is intimate, exhausting and essential, yet it remains among the least valued forms of work. For seven years, Mercyline Kanule lived this contradiction to provide for her family. A domestic worker since 1993, she cared for three children in her employer's home, working day and night without rest, appreciation or time to herself for a monthly pay of Sh5,000, barely enough to feed her own children. "My employer was never appreciative of the work I was doing. She never allowed me to rest even on Sundays on argument that she had paid me to work a whole month. It is a lot of work yet to you are working during day and night, but the pay remains the same," Kanule noted. Her story mirrors that of thousands of nannies, house helps, daycare attendants, and childcare workers across Kenyan working families. In a country where most childcare is informal and unregulated, these workers are often paid between Sh3,000 and Sh8,000 a month, far less than many casual labourers earn, despite being entrusted with children's lives. They work without contracts, social protection, or recognition, dismissed as "unskilled labour" rather than professionals performing emotionally and physically demanding care. Today, Kanule runs a small daycare in Kibera after training herself to escape domestic enslavement. But even here, the struggle continues because parents in low-income settlements pay what they can, or nothing at all, while expectations remain high. "All they want is their children taken care of, whether they have paid or not," she added. According to Kenya Union of Domestic Hotels Educational Institutions Hospitals & Allied Workers (Kudheiha), domestic workers account for a significant portion of global workforce in informal employment and they are among the most vulnerable. Among the common challenges by the workers include long working hours, below-minimum pay, torture, discrimination, job insecurity and gender-based violence. Under the Employment Act (2007) and the Labour Relations framework, workers are entitled to written contracts, minimum wage protection, reasonable working hours and rest, protection from unfair dismissal and maternity leave. Lobby groups pushed for legal provision that set the minimum wage of domestic workers to Sh10, 955 per month in Nairobi, Mombasa and Kisumu, Sh10,107 in all other former municipal councils and Sh5,844 in other areas in 2015. In 2017, the minimum wage was raised by 18 per cent to Sh12,825.72 and an entitled day off every week. But activists state that the law exists on paper, but enforcement is not effected in the private homes where domestic workers are employed. Kudheiha lists domestic workers as all persons employed or engaged as subordinate and professionals in private homes, houses, flats, apartments, children homes, homes for the aged, among others. Loice Wairimu, a domestic worker from Kiambu, argues that the unfair treatment by their employers provokes them to turn their anger to the children. Joyce Mwangangi, a rights activist, says many domestic and childcare workers endure mistreatment because of lack of legal knowledge on their rights. "When you talk about househelps, do they understand what the law says? That is the biggest challenge that we have in the community. The first impression that you get is fear. They fear, they feel insecure, and that is because they do not understand their rights," Mwangangi added. She argued that fear and legal illiteracy directly affects how the househelps negotiate for their wages noting that, in low-income areas, pay is rarely negotiated nor regulated. A recent report by OXFAM says there are more than 2 million domestic workers, majority being women. Of the total, 80 per cent of remain informal, without protections, fair pay or recognition. The OXFAM report notes that women are five times more likely to be engaged in unpaid or lowly paid work such as domestic work than men. The report titled Kenya's Inequality Crisis: The Great Economic Divide, found out that women dominate Kenya's informal labour market, where domestic work is located. Further it established that domestic workers are often excluded from health insurance, pensions, maternity benefits, and income support.

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