Women of Colour Organisations

International Black Women for Wages for Housework
An independent grassroots network  of  women of Colour – African, Asian, Caribbean, Indigenous, Native American, Kurdish . . .  within the International Wages for Housework Campaign. Started in 1976, we are based in the UK, US and Caribbean and work with grassroots women of Colour in a number of countries. The following organisations are part of our network:

  • Centro de Capacitación para Trabajadoras del Hogar
    (Domestic Workers Centre), Peru
    Campaigns for domestic workers in Peru to be recognized as workers – most domestic workers are Indigenous women who have migrated from the rural areas to the city. Campaigns for employment and human rights, and for justice for rape and other violence by employers.
  • Chhattisgarh Women's Organization, India
    A self-help group formed in 1984.  Defends the rights of rural women and girls in 400 villages, who are Dalit (the lowest caste) or Tribal who are victims of bonded labour, rape and exploitation by landlords, police and other officials.
  • Kaabong Women's Group, Uganda 
     Based in 200 villages in Karamoja, a heavily militarized, semi-desert area deprived of resources. They highlight women's huge workload, learn and teach skills -- including literacy and earning an independent income through re-claiming and re-generating arid land -- and refusing domestic rape, military and other violence. 
  • Centro Cultural Aymará, Comunicación y Desarrollo, "Pacha Aru", Peru
         Campaigns for human, cultural and economic rights for Indigenous women – Aymara and Quechua – in the Andes region of Puno. They highlight the work of rural women who grow the food that feeds the cities, and to defend the culture of their communities. 

  • National Union of Domestic Employees (NUDE) , Trinidad & Tobago

    • Formed in 1982, NUDE fights for domestic workers and other low-paid workers whom unions refuse to represent.  Fights against abuses by employers, from rape and sexual assault to withholding wages and summary dismissal, through the courts, in the media, etc, and opposes careerism in the women's movement and voluntary sector.  Like CCTH in Peru, they campaign for domestic workers to be recognized as workers and to be protected by employment legislation.
    Open letter to Hazel Brown From Ida Le Blanc, NUDE
         Carta abierta: a Hazel Brown de Ida Le Blanc, Sindicato Nacional De Empleadas Domesticas, (NUDE) Trinidad & Tobago

  • Red Thread, Guyana
    Established in 1986, Red Thread has built a multi-racial group of grassroots Guyanese women in a country with deep and sometimes violent race divides.  We work both on the coastal strip of Guyana with Afro-Guyanese and Indo-Guyanese women, and in the interior with Indigenous women, and we increasingly focus on using the framework of counting women's unwaged and low-waged work to address the divisions of race and gender that keep the poorest women trapped in poverty and intolerable burdens of work.

Read more about the current activities and organizing of these groups for the Global Women's Strike at www.globalwomenstrike.net