Home Truths: Wellbeing and vulnerabilities of child domestic workers

This report presents the findings of a multi-country study into the psychosocial wellbeing of child domestic workers (CDWs) across three continents. The study was conducted in Peru, Costa Rica, Togo, Tanzania, India and Philippines during 2009 with around 3,000 children, mostly between the ages of 10 and 17; half of whom work as paid or unpaid domestic workers.

The results of this study provide information on the diverse situations affecting CDWs in the countries studied. For example, a significant amount of CDW’s in India and Togo suffer from physical abuse, long hours, exclusion from school, and poor pay. The overall data of this study supports further situation specific research; researchers in this study found that similar situations affect CDWs in different ways. This study focused on the psychosocial impact of domestic work on children.