Domestic Labour, Human Trafficking and Exploitation in Cameroon

The study revealed that 80% of Cameroon’s domestic workers are women under 19 with no or low education and are from poor rural backgrounds. Their working conditions are very dificult as 19.6% of them work day and night and the average daily duration of work is as high as 12 hours. 4.1% of them also work on their employers’ farms or taking care of animals while still carrying out their customary activities as domestic workers. 25.0% of them work throughout the week and some go without annual leave and when it is granted, it is without pay.12.3% of domestic workers do not receive a wage. Domestic workers are very lowly paid with 68.8% of them receiving a monthly wage below the minimum wage of 55 US dollars. 79.5% of them work without a written work contract ,95.6%° are unaware of the existence of minimum wage,90.4% are unaware of the obligation for social insurance contibutions by their employers and 98.6% are ignorant of the existence of a maximum number of daily working hours. Domestic work in Cameroon is to a large extent a form of slavery with a high degree of exploitation. More 60 percent of domestic workers especially the young ones are recruited via a network of intrmediaries who make enornous gains in the transactions
Key words: domestic work, slavery, Cameroon, work load, exploitation