Small Grants, Big Change: Influencing policy and practice for child domestic workers

The purpose of this report is to learn from Anti-Slavery International’s programming experiences, which focused on building grass roots civil society capacity to influence the policy and practice of duty bearers, empowering child domestic workers themselves to play a central role in tackling their situation and defining solutions to their individual and collective circumstances.

Anti-Slavery International has made some key observations:

1. Raising child domestic workers’ awareness their situation, entitlements, etc. is the first step to building self-respect, confidence, and advocacy strategies that incorporate their perspectives.
2. Participatory advocacy goes hand-in-hand with service provision
3. Effective children’s participation in advocacy depends on extensive preparation, including child rights training and education of participatory approaches, as well as methods and purpose of advocacy.
4. Engaging with employers is essential for effective and sustainable change.
5. Cooperation with and between civil society institutions is also necessary for achieving considerable and lasting results.
6. National policy and legislative reform is essential in underpinning and sustaining local gains in social attitudes and behavior change.
7. The overall challenge to assisting child domestic workers is their sheer numbers, their isolation, and the diverse nature of their workplaces.