FSS held a national conference on female domestic work in Ethiopia on Thursday, July 17, 2025, at Best Western Plus Hotel, Addis Ababa.

The conference marks the completion of a research and advocacy project titled: “Female Domestic Work in Ethiopia: Current Situation and Future Reform” that FSS has been implementing with financial assistance from the Open Society Foundation (OSF) over the last two years.

The objective of the project is to generate evidence on the current realities and emerging trends in female domestic work in Ethiopia, informing policy and initiating legislative reform on the issue.

The national conference was opened with brief welcoming remarks by FSS Executive Director Dr. Yeraswork Admassie. This was followed by the conference’s first presentation on the introduction of project by the project’s coordinator Dr. Ezana Amdework.

The presentation guided the conveners through the implementation of the research and advocacy project and the activities performed so far, notably the stakeholder engagement forums which FSS organized towards the end of the project, to share the main findings of the research and the draft legislation and explore on ways around strategic engagement aimed at setting the agenda and driving policy change on issues affecting female domestic workers in Ethiopia, including media disseminations of programs produced based on the outputs of the research and advocacy project.

After the introduction of the project, three presentations were made; The first presentation, titled: Female Domestic Work in Ethiopia: Realities, Perspectives, and Policy Directions, was made by Dr. Selam Esayas, Dr. Ezana Amdework and  Dr. Elshaday. Kifle. The research was carried out in Addis Ababa and Hawassa, to generate evidence and knowledge to guide the preparation of an advocacy material to inform policy and catalyze the formulation of legislation by the Ethiopian government on domestic work in the country.

 The second presentation titled: Advancing Labour Protections for Domestic Workers in Ethiopia: Legal Gaps, Challenges and the Way Forward,  was made by Ato Mussie Mezgebo, a lawyer by profession, who, along with Ato Direse Gashaw, also a law professional. co-prepared  FSS model legislation and a four-page policy brief on domestic work in Ethiopia.

The legislation was prepared based on the evidence generated by the two-year research conducted by FSS. The last presentation by Ato Elias Efirsata from a partner organization, the Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association (EWLA),  shared the organization’s practical lessons on advocacy efforts on the topic of domestic work in Ethiopia.

During the discussion/question and answer session that followed, participants shared views, raised questions, forwarded suggestions, and comments. FSS resource persons who were involved in the research and advocacy project and the guest speaker from EWLA responded to the questions, appreciated the reflections and noted the comments they believed could enrich the research works and the legislation. The national conference was concluded with closing remarks by Bahru Zewde, Professor Emeritus, who is the chairman of the Executive Board of FSS.  During his closing remarks, Professor Bahru said he was happy to have attended the conference, which dealt with an issue of national concern, and expressed his gratitude for the active participation by the attendees in the discussion, comments, and reflections on the topic. Finally, he thanked FSS resource persons and staff for putting together and facilitating a successful national conference.

The national conference brought together around 45 participants drawn from several stakeholder organizations, including line ministries, government policy organs, civil society organizations, trade unions, academia, and the media.  With that, the national workshop officially came to an end.