New resources are helping employers build better relationships with domestic workers through dignity and care. The Dignity in Every Home Campaign is helping guide South Africans to become better employers.
South Africa (30 March 2026) – Some relationships shape a home in quiet, powerful ways. The person who helps raise your children, who keeps your space running when life feels overwhelming, who shows up day after day to care for the details that make everything else possible. And yet, across South Africa, the people doing this deeply personal work are too often unseen in the ways that matter most.
The Dignity in Every Home campaign is asking us to look again.
Launched as a national initiative, the campaign brings together Izwi Domestic Workers Alliance, the Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa (SERI), the United Domestic Workers of South Africa (UDWOSA) and the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU). Its goal is both simple and profound: to support employers of domestic workers in creating working environments that are safe, fair, lawful and rooted in respect.
Employing someone in your home is not informal. It is not a favour. It is a workplace, and with that comes responsibility.
At the heart of the campaign are three practical resources designed to guide employers through what fair employment actually looks like in everyday life. Titled Are You A Fair Employer?, Code of Good Conduct for Accommodating Live-In Domestic Workers and Employing a Domestic Worker – A Legal and Practical Guide, these tools unpack everything from wages and working hours to leave, dismissal procedures and mandatory registration for the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) and Compensation Fund for Occupational Injuries and Diseases (COIDA).
They are, importantly, written to be accessible. Not legal documents to intimidate, but guides to empower. When expectations are clear and rights are respected, something shifts. Workers gain security. Employers gain peace of mind. And homes become spaces of dignity, not imbalance.
Amy Tekie, co-founder of Izwi Domestic Workers Alliance, puts it plainly:
“As employers, we must understand the responsibility we take on when inviting someone to work in our homes. A cleaner or nanny must have the same labour rights we expect from our own employers.”
Her words land with weight when placed alongside the reality that many domestic workers still face. Long hours that stretch up to 14-hour days. Time spent away from their own families. Wages that fall below the legal minimum. And, behind closed doors, experiences of bullying, discrimination and, in some cases, abuse.
“It is now time for us to talk about this as a society,” Tekie says, “to admit that these practices are unconstitutional yet widespread, and to ensure that things change.”
One of the campaign’s most powerful tools is its “Are You a Fair Employer?” checklist, which doubles as an interactive quiz. It prompts employers to reflect on the basics: Are you registered for UIF and making monthly contributions? Are you paying at least the national minimum wage of R30.23 per hour? Are working hours capped at 45 hours per week? Are you treating your employee with respect at all times?
Simple questions, perhaps. But collectively, they reveal how easily gaps can form when systems are not understood or prioritised.
And then there is the matter of what that minimum wage really means. At R30.23 an hour, a full-time domestic worker earns around R5,239.46 a month. From that, they must cover transport, food, rent for their families, electricity, school costs and the everyday essentials most of us take for granted. The campaign encourages employers to go further where they can, using a Living Wage calculator to better understand what a truly sustainable income looks like.
For those employing live-in domestic workers, the campaign goes deeper still. Its Code of Good Conduct addresses a reality that is often overlooked: the conditions in which workers live. From restricted movement and limited access to shared spaces in residential estates, to rules in private homes that control what workers eat, where they go or whether they can have visitors, many practices still infringe on basic constitutional rights.
The Code sets out a different standard. One that affirms privacy, dignity, freedom of movement, and equal access. One that recognises that no job should come at the cost of a person’s humanity.
The third resource, a detailed legal and practical guide, supports employers in navigating the full employment relationship. From contracts and working hours to disciplinary processes and fair termination, it offers clarity in areas that can often feel complex or uncomfortable.
Together, these tools are doing more than ticking compliance boxes. They are helping reshape a national mindset. Fair employment is not just about following the law. It is about recognising the value of the people who hold our homes together. It is about building relationships based on trust rather than hierarchy. And, ultimately, it is about the kind of country we choose to be.
There are over one million domestic workers in South Africa. One million stories. One million lives woven into the fabric of households across the country.
The Dignity in Every Home campaign is a reminder that change does not always start in big, public spaces. Sometimes, it starts at your front door.
And what happens inside that space matters more than we think.
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