Jessica Pereira

MA
Latin American Studies

Research Title : Challenges Confronting Domestic Workers in Post-Pandemic Rio de Janeiro

Brazil, a country with one of the largest domestic workforces globally, particularly among Afro-Brazilian women, continues to face a high rate of informality; around 70% of these professionals do not have the guarantee of labor rights because they are not registered with Brazilian Social Security.

This reality is a direct consequence of 388 years of African slavery that naturalized enslaved women carried out domestic tasks and were often responsible for raising and breastfeeding the children of white families.

The situation was also exacerbated by the precarious implementation of public policies of inclusion for new salaried workers after the abolition of slavery in 1888.

While the Brazilian Constitutional Amendment No. 72 of 2013 marked a significant step towards ensuring more citizenship for domestic workers, unions and activists claim that gaps in the labor protection of these professionals persist. Domestic workers' vulnerabilities became even more visible after the sanitary crisis, which further exacerbated the economic and political instability in Brazil over the past decade.

During the pandemic, for many domestic workers, exposure to the coronavirus was inevitable. Consequently, one of the first nationally recorded cases of a COVID-19-related death was Cleonice Gonçalves, a housekeeper from Rio de Janeiro.

Even in the face of crises over the past ten years, the elite still keepmaids as social status.

At the same time, domestic workers often agree to informal arrangements with their employers to avoid losing their jobs.

In this context, this project aims to investigate the socio-economic vulnerabilities of domestic workers in post-pandemic Rio de Janeiro to highlight the critical importance of revising existing labor laws to grant them the same labor rights as other professionals.

Moreover, the research project will delve into the historical significance of labor unions, advocating for the labor rights of these workers while also collaborating to create a class consciousness in a society that still suffers from an entrenched colonial legacy.