Suthachai and Somyot were detained for interrogation purposes pertaining to the political protests associated with the Red Shirts. The Red Shirt group is the main opposition to the government in Thailand. Somyot and Suthachai have no recent activity as part of the core leadership of the Red Shirts. Their participation in the demonstrations was strictly on a journalistic and academic level. After their initial arrest, they were brought to Adisorn Army Base in Saraburi, which is approximately 115 km north of Bangkok, and placed in solitary confinement. On Friday May 28th, the Criminal Court in conjunction with the Centre for Resolution of the Emergency Situation (CRES) had extended the detention of Somyot and Suthachai until June 6th- seven days beyond the originally set date.

During a recent conference, entitled "Exploited, Undervalued and Essential," hosted by the University of Western Cape’s Social Law Project, academics and experts made recommendations for ways to improve conditions of work for domestic workers, such as local and municipal administration of regulations to facilitate monitoring and collective bargaining and tax incentives for employers to register employees with the Unemployment Insurance Fund.

The advocacy and mobilization on domestic worker issues is not new in South Africa, however the conference contributed to recent ongoing research and consultation related to the drafting of a proposed ILO instrument on Decent Work for Domestic Workers that many labor organizations and some governments hopes to have adopted by 2011.

Likewise General Secretary of the Home-Based Women Workers Federation of Pakistan, Zehra Bano, spoke out against the unfair treatment that many home based garment workers, bracelet craftsmen and soccer ball stitchers in Pakistan face.  Although such workers use their homes as a factory, they are not paid for the additional electricity or other costs that arise from using their homes for work. As informal workers, these women are prohibited from forming unions and filing court cases since they are not recognized as workers by law. Such status prevents home based workers from receiving the fair living wages, health benefits and job security that come with being a registered worker.

By Vanessa León, Intern, International Labor Rights Forum

Harassment: sometimes sexual, other times verbal, often times both.
Attempts to organize unions result in termination of employment.
Pregnancy tests or proof of sterilization as a condition for hiring.
Pesticides and fungicides causing respiratory and eye problems, skin rashes and miscarriages.
Years of faithful, grueling work only to be denied basic worker's rights. Basic human rights.