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Indonesia| Founded in 2004 | Thousand Currents Partner since 2023

Jaringan Nasional Advokasi Pekerja Rumah Tangga (JALA PRT)

Mobilizing a broad base to advocate for and improve domestic workers’ rights

Jaringan Nasional Advokasi Pekerja Rumah Tangga (JALA PRT) is a national domestic worker advocacy network founded in 2004. JALA PRT’s membership is made up  of 42 organizations that include domestic workers’ unions, individual domestic workers, women organizations, civil society organizations, and feminist activists. The key goal of JALA PRT is to advocate for  domestic workers rights, and the ratification of the  International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention 189 on decent work for domestic workers. 

JALA PRT’s main workstreams are:

  • Political education: JALA PRT’s flagship School of Insight has hosted over 15,000 domestic workers for political education. Domestic workers entirely lead the school. They take leadership roles,   teach, and attend the program, which reaches workers in seven provinces of Indonesia. The political education program has been adopted by several other domestic worker unions of Indonesia as a way to grow their work.
  • Movement building and mobilizing: JALA PRT’s members meet regularly and hold regular demonstrations in support of the domestic workers’ protection law. It also mobilizes its base to support allied labor organizations to resist anti-worker programs and regulations.  
  • Legal assistance: JALA PRT supports members facing unlawful termination, physical, economic, or sexual harassment, and to fight against low wages. It provides legal assistance to address violations.
  • Strategic litigation: JALA PRT has prepared a legal case that it will soon put in front of the Supreme Court. The litigation aims to make a case to include domestic workers as beneficiaries of various national social protection schemes like pension benefits and healthcare. 

In 2018, the ILO lauded JALA PRT’s domestic worker-led political education school as an exemplary program in worker organizing. Alumni of this program have created new unions, become parliamentary candidates, and have led advocacy to demand laws to protect domestic workers in Indonesia.