A Hidden Industry: Mistreatment Plagues Kenya's Domestic Workers

Murogo says she has been frustrated by the lack of attention to the issue from international humanitarian organizations. "The NGO community is always talking about women's rights, and that's great," she said, pointing to commonplace projects like access to water and school construction. "But what about women's rights in our homes?"

Albert Njeru, who heads the Kenyan Union of Domestic, Hotels, Educational Institutions, Hospitals and Allied Workers, which represents domestic workers, says less than than 3,000 people are registered with the union, the result of little knowledge and education among workers. He also noted that many workers are underage, an illegal but common practice in Kenya.

The union, using numbers from Kenya's Bureau of Statistics as well as its own research, estimates that there are hundreds of thousands of children working as domestic help illegally and being paid very little, if at all.

"Employers will provide the food, some clothing, work the children for seven days a week and never pay them," Njeru said.

In 2001, the Kenyan government passed the Children's Act, making it illegal to hire any child younger than 16, but, as with the minimum wage, the law has been difficult to enforce.

"An employer comes in and says this is my sister or a member of my family," Njeru said. "It's very hard to prove it's not true. Workers fear reporting. There's intimidation from the families, and sometimes from the police. And they fear that they will have to leave without being paid, even if their pay is just a little."

While the union launched a campaign last year to educate Kenyans about the ills of employing children as domestic help and has found some nongovernmental organizations willing to partner on the issue of child labor in Kenya, he says that the overall human rights issues of domestic workers is too large a problem for the union to address alone.

"One or two organizations will not be able to penetrate the issue of domestic worker abuse," Njeru said. "We need cooperation with other agencies, local and international."