The Laudelina app is a joint effort by THEMIS and FENATRAD - the National Federation of Domestic Workers, with the support of the 2016 Google Social Impact Challenge Award. The app includes a manual on the rights of domestic workers; salary, benefit and contract termination calculators; a list of protection institutions in different cities in Brazil; and a network of contacts of workers from the same region, enabling the exchange of information, the strengthening of a support network, and facilitating the organization of workers, including trade unions.

 

"In 2015, Brazil had more than 6 million people in domestic work, 92% of whom were women and 61% black. Despite strong discrimination, domestic work has been the source of income for millions of families and an alternative to economic autonomy for women. We believe that women workers' knowledge of their rights is essential if they are to become a reality, and the Laudelina app was developed for this purpose," explain the Themis representatives.

 

The app is named after Laudelina de Campos Melo, a black movement activist who created the first association of domestic workers in Brazil in 1936 in the city of Campinas/SP. For decades, the rights of the category were very limited: only in 2013, with Constitutional Amendment 72, and in 2015, with Complementary Law 150, were basic rights such as the limit on working hours and the payment of overtime regulated.

 

The Laudelina app is an offshoot of a broader project called "Domestic Work: Building Equality in Brazil", a partnership between Themis and UN Women and the ELAS Fund that aimed to strengthen domestic workers' unions and promote labor rights for the category at a national level. Carried out in 2015, the project supported 9 domestic workers' unions by training 50 union leaders and activists from all regions of the country, with the greatest impact being the approval and regulation of the Domestic Workers' PEC (150/2015), an achievement that benefits more than 7 million workers.

 

THEMIS - Gender, Justice and Human Rights was created in 1993 by a group of feminist lawyers and social scientists with the aim of tackling discrimination against women in the justice system. The history of THEMIS is intertwined with the struggles and achievements of Brazilian women. Its mission is to increase access to justice. It is a civil society organization based in Porto Alegre (RS/Brazil).

 

Download the Laudelina app at: laudelina.com.br/app

 

To keep up to date with the Laudelina project, follow the Facebook page: https://web.facebook.com/aplicativolaudelina/

<