COVID-19 pandemic deepened domestic workers' struggles in Morocco

Domestic workers were tremendously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the restrictions that came with it, said the Democratic Labor Confederation.

With the lack of official data around the situation of domestic workers in the kingdom, the Union presented a report on Tuesday that sheds light on the social and economic conditions of Moroccan domestic workers, whose number is estimated at nearly 200,000.

The Union conducted a qualitative study based on the experiences of 240 domestic workers in Morocco, 96 percent of whom are women.

Women are breadwinners for 16.2 percent of Moroccan families (8.5 million families), and most of them work as domestic workers.

The average monthly income of active, working women decreased by 42 percent, compared to the period prior to the quarantine.

As the pandemic swept the country in March, many organizations laid off hundreds of workers causing the loss of 430 thousand jobs. Families found themselves unable to afford a domestic worker amid the economic struggle, while some chose to release their domestic workers fearing infection, according to the union.

Since most domestic workers work part-time, and on-demand, without having any official working contract with their employers, they could not benefit from the state’s financial help during the pandemic that required the registration in the RAMID program.

Domestic workers in Morocco struggle with paying wages, salary deductions, and exploitation.

In some cases, domestic workers can be exposed to contemporary slavery, intense forced labor amid low wages, and physical and emotional abuse, according to the union.