Marcelina Bautista

Marcelina Bautista Bautista (born 25 April 1966) is a Mexican human rights activist and trade union organizer. She worked as a domestic worker for 22 years, starting at the age of 14. She put herself through school, graduating from the Ibero-American University and started organizing her fellow workers. She founded the organizations Centro de Apoyo y Capacitación para Empleadas del Hogar in 2000 and Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras del Hogar (SINACTRAHO) in 2015.

Marcelina Bautista
Bautista in 2017
Born (1966-04-25) 25 April 1966
Tierra Colorada Apasco, Nochixtlán, Oaxaca, Mexico
Occupation(s)Domestic worker, trade union organizer
Known forFounding SINACTRAHO

Early life and domestic work

Marcelina Bautista Bautista was born on 25 April 1966 to a Mixtec peasant family in Tierra Colorada Apasco, Nochixtlán, Oaxaca, a town with around 500 people. She grew up alongside 11 siblings[1] speaking Mixtec,[2][3] and had aspirations of becoming a lawyer.[4] She moved from Oaxaca to Mexico City at age 14.[5]

At the age of 14, after she completed primary school, she was forced to travel to Mexico City to work and support her family. She knew very little Spanish and wandered the streets until she found a sign reading "looking for a servant".[4] She was employed as a domestic worker for 22 years, doing childcare and housework.[6] As a domestic worker, she experienced discrimination and exploitation. She was underpaid by her employer and beaten for not knowing how to use a washing machine.[4]

Education and social activism

Bautista completed an education while working full-time. She spent three years learning about Mexican labor laws and the Constitution. She earned a diploma in Communication and Civil Society from the Ibero-American University.[1] In 1988, she travelled to Bogotá, Colombia and was a participant in the First Latin American and Caribbean Meeting of Domestic Workers.[2] She started organizing domestic workers around the same time, meeting at a north side park in Mexico City.[4]

Bautista founded the organization Centro de Apoyo y Capacitación para Empleadas del Hogar (CACEH) in 2000. Through the organization, she promoted domestic workers' rights and started the process of their unionization.[2] It was the first Mexican civil association dedicated to defending the rights of domestic workers. Through CACEH, Bautista pursued legal reforms requiring employers to enroll their workers in social security.[7]

Bautista continued organizing domestic workers and has become one of the primary activists fighting for their rights in Mexico.[3] From 2006 to 2012, she served as the General Secretary of the Confederación Latinoamericana y del Caribe de Trabajadoras del Hogar (CONLACTRAHO). She was a regional coordinator of Red Internacional de Trabajadoras del Hogar from 2009 to 2013. Bautista participated in the creation and approval of the Convention on Domestic Workers, which set labor standards for domestic workers and was adopted by the International Labour Organization in 2011. She was the regional coordinator for Latin America for the Federación Internacional de Trabajadoras del Hogar (FITH) from 2013 to 2016.[2] She founded the Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras del Hogar (SINACTRAHO) in 2015.[3]

In 2019, Bautista was invited to attend the 91st Academy Awards by Alfonso Cuarón, director of the 2018 film Roma, which follows the life of a live-in housekeeper.[8]

Awards
  • Premio Hermila Galindo de la Comisión de Derechos Humanos del Distrito Federal (2006)
  • Premio de Derechos Humanos de la Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (2010)
  • Premio Nacional por la Igualdad y la No Discriminación granted by the National Council to Prevent Discrimination (2013)
  • Medalla Omecíhuatl (2017)
  • BBC's 100 Women (2021)

References
  1. "Marcelina Bautista: leyes para proteger a quienes nos cuidan". Deutsche Welle (in European Spanish). 26 November 2021. Archived from the original on 5 January 2023. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  2. "Bautista Bautista, Marcelina - Biografías Trabajadoras del Hogar". National Council to Prevent Discrimination. Archived from the original on 5 January 2023. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  3. "Gracias a nuestra labor, nuestros empleadores pueden trabajar para el desarrollo económico de los países". Noticias ONU (in Spanish). 18 March 2019.
  4. Linthicum, Kate (21 February 2019). "Like the main character in 'Roma,' she worked in homes for decades. Now she's fighting for domestic workers". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on 5 January 2023. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  5. "Marcelina Bautista, founder of the Center for Support and Training of Domestic Workers in Mexico | WIEGO". www.wiego.org. Archived from the original on 23 April 2023. Retrieved 23 April 2023.
  6. "Marcelina Bautista: "Trabajar por y con las trabajadoras del hogar hizo sentirme útil, sobre todo cuando una compañera transforma su historia y exige sus derechos"". ONU Mujeres – América Latina y el Caribe (in Spanish). 30 March 2022. Archived from the original on 5 January 2023. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  7. Cullell, Jon Martín (16 May 2022). "Marcelina Bautista, la trabajadora del hogar que se puso los guantes frente a los abusos: "Nos veían como servidumbre"". El País México (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 5 January 2023. Retrieved 5 January 2023.
  8. "Líderes de trabajadoras del hogar asistirán a la ceremonia del Óscar". La Jornada. 24 February 2019. Archived from the original on 29 January 2020.
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