Mobility and Access to Domestic Work Employment: Experiences of Young Female Domestic Workers in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Abstract

While domestic workers in the city of Dar es Salaam are conceived as mostly young girls from villages outside the city, very little is understood about how the girls at their tender age, and limited experiences, manage to arrive in the city. Knowledge of how they are linked to employers in the city is also inadequate. Among the central objectives of the study upon which this article is based were to explore the means employed by the young girls to get to the city and to get linked to employers, and to investigate the nature of employers. Drawing on the migration network theory and aligning with the study findings, this paper reveals support from parents, relatives, drivers, conductors, and brokers as central modes of getting to the city. It also unveils informal employment agencies and brokers as significant means through which the young girls are connected to different employers. The author recommends prompt measures to curb different social networks that are used as the means of trafficking and employing young girls as domestic workers which also violate their rights.