The state turns a blind eye to the sexual abuse and violence that female domestic workers face in Cyprus, the head of a women’s rights group said yesterday, demanding that measures are taken for their protection and support.
Josie Christodoulou, policy coordinator at the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS) was the keynote speaker at the conference on sexual violence against domestic workers co-hosted with the Cyprus University of Technology as part of the ‘Commun-AID’ programme that aims to empower migrant workers to respond to sexual abuse through community-based interventions.
Christodoulou said that even though domestic workers are visible in our every day lives and a large part of our economy is built around them, they are invisible when it comes to policies, legislations and their rights.
“Research studies show that worldwide domestic workers are victims of violence, physical, verbal, psychological or sexual and in Cyprus what makes them especially vulnerable to violence and exploitation is the that most of them live and work at the house of their employers,” she said.
Commissioner for Administration and Human Rights, Eliza Savvidou, said that we have failed to apply the law on fighting discrimination at the workplace for domestic workers because immigration control comes before equal treatment of workers.
