Guinea: Thousands of Girls Face Abuse as Domestic Workers

The 110-page report, “Bottom of the Ladder: Exploitation and Abuse of Girl Domestic Workers in Guinea,” documents how girls as young as 8 years old work up to 18 hours a day as domestic workers, frequently without pay, and are often insulted, beaten and raped by their employers. Domestic work is the largest employment category among children in Guinea. Girls come from as far as Mali, and some are victims of trafficking and forced labor.

“Girls recruited into domestic work in Guinea often live in conditions akin to slavery, and many are victims of trafficking,” said Juliane Kippenberg, a children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch and the author of the report. “The new government urgently needs to take concrete measures to protect girl domestic workers.”

The large majority of girls interviewed by Human Rights Watch said their employers refused to enroll them in school, even when other children in the family were attending school. Current efforts in Guinea to increase girls’ primary school enrollment, in line with the United Nations Millennium Development Goals, fail to target girl domestic workers.

A 15-year-old girl, sent by her father at age 8 to work for a woman in the capital Conakry, told Human Rights Watch: “The woman suggested to my father that she could look after me and send me to school …. I have not been in contact with my father since …. The other children in the family go to school but not me. The promise of education was never mentioned again. I do the domestic work and sell piment [hot pepper]. When she is gone, her husband wakes me up and rapes me. He has threatened me with a knife and said I must not tell anyone. He does it each time his wife travels. I am scared.”

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