Child Domestic Work as Intimate Labour: Towards relational protection

Abstract

Child domestic work (CDW) is typically considered through narrow labour or trafficking framings that do not fully explain how harm and protection are produced inside employing households. Drawing on the learnings from a Freedom Fund project in Ethiopia, this short article argues that CDW should, instead, be addressed by paying closer attention to household hierarchies, everyday care practices, and the role of employers and employers’ children in shaping the lives of child domestic workers. We argue that three shifts are needed: researchers should measure dignity and belonging alongside harm; programme designers should engage households, including children, as part of change efforts; and policymakers should connect household-level change to legal recognition, regulation, and social protection.