Mobilizing the right to education for domestic workers in Indonesia

This study evaluates the role of the National Domestic Workers Advocacy Network (JALA-PRT) in mobilizing domestic workers’ right to education through a socio-legal framework of legal mobilization. Female domestic workers often experience an imbalance in power dynamics with their employers because employers tend to devalue their work and lower their opportunities to develop themselves, which exacerbates gender-based disparities. By translating International Labor Organization Domestic Workers Convention No. 189 concerning decent work for domestic workers (C189) into the local context, this research aims to un-cover how vernacularization addresses domestic workers’ issues and empowers them, particularly through skill-enhancing education that improves their bargaining power. The qualitative analysis examines JALA-PRT’s framing of domestic workers issues, evaluates vernacularization strategies that they applied including policy advocacy, organizing and un-ionizing, building networks, domestic worker schools and various trainings, and assesses these strategies' achievements and limitations. Further, it describes existing structural biases and how to overcome them. The findings contribute to critical discussions on structural biases within human rights discourses and underscore the importance of locally adapted, gender-aware vernacularization for marginalized groups.