In Colombia 666.954 women are employed as domestic workers, only 39% of them are affiliated to the national social security system and 61% of them earn less than the legal minimum wage. 90% of all domestic workers in Colombia come from the country’s lower classes, which shows that domestic work is still an activity performed by economically segregated women in the country.

In Colombia, the Equal Value, Equal Rights program works with the “Afro-Colombian Domestic Service Workers Union” (UTRASD, for its acronym in Spanish), through our partner, the National Syndical School (ENS, for its acronym in Spanish). An important characteristic of the union with which we work in Colombia is that more than half of the affiliates have been victims of armed conflict in the country; whether they have been kidnapped, raped or forcibly displaced, more than half of affiliated workers are violence survivors.

UTRASD, is a trade union organization of Afro-Colombian character, since 67.6% affiliates identify themselves as Afro-Colombian; followed by 15.7% who identify as black and 14.7% as mestizo. Of the affiliates, 71.7% are employed per day, 20% are employed as external workers and 8.3% under in-house modality.