Last week,
@covaw and our lead partner
@WorldUniService paid a courtesy visit to the Office of the Commissioner for Labour, Madam Hellen Apiyo, to share progress from the Action for Paid Childcare Sector Transformation (ACT) Project - an initiative advancing efforts toward a more gender-transformative childcare economy in Kenya.
The conversation centred on what it will take to move childcare work out of the shadows and into recognition, protection, and value.
We are advancing this through:
✓ 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐢𝐚𝐥: Pushing for policies that recognise and formalise childcare work as real, paid, and essential work.
✓ 𝐀𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐯𝐨𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐬: Strengthening childcare provider networks so workers can organise, speak, and act with collective power.
✓ 𝐋𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐮𝐩: Building training and certification pathways to professionalise the childcare sector and expand skills, recognition, and dignity in childcare work.
✓ 𝐃𝐞𝐜𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤: Advancing fair working conditions, safety, and respect for the women who sustain the childcare sector every day.
Central to the conversation were ILO Convention 189 - decent work for domestic workers, and ILO Convention 190 - eliminating violence and harassment in the workplace. These are the frameworks Kenya's childcare and domestic workers need, and we are pushing for their ratification because safe, dignified, and violence-free work is not a privilege. It is a right.
We commend the
@LabourSPKE for its progress toward ratifying these conventions and for its commitment to strengthening labour rights for some of Kenya's most underprotected workers.
Childcare work is not invisible. It is essential economic work. And it deserves recognition, protection, and investment at the centre of Kenya's development agenda.
#ACT4Care #ACTProject #TransformingCare #ChildcareWorkIsWork #CareEconomy #DecentWork #WomenEmpowerment #LabourRights #GenderEquality