Modern technology could be the most pristine breakthrough the human race has ever achieved, as more noble solutions come to light each day proving that—decent forms of labour can be attained if the digital economy wages its fair share of war into the sector, and Tanzania is the exemplary figure in this labour-related case.
Huduma Smart is not an ordinary startup. It is a young, female-led enterprise that trains domestic workers and provides a job market for them via a tailored website, where employers can recruit workers of their choice per qualifications they desired and acceptability of a worker. More importantly, the startup provides health insurance and contracts to workers, among other necessities, to make their jobs respectable, a global missing recipe in the labour section.
The domestic labour landscape
It has been a custom for most average families and most of the middle-income households to require services from housemaids, recruited from different parts of the nation, in most cases as the International Labor Organization (ILO) asserts, from socially disadvantaged communities.
According to the International Domestic Workers Federation (IDFW), the Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189), the recently adopted international labour standard for the sector, defines domestic work as “work performed in or for a household or households” and a domestic worker as “any person engaged in domestic work within an employment relationship.”
On the side of the aisle, the federation argues that in mainland Tanzania—the definition is slightly different, as it defines a domestic servant to include any person employed wholly or partially as a cook, house servant, waiter, butler, maidservant, valet, bar attendant, groom, gardener, or watchman.
According to the ILO, it is estimated that the global domestic workers stand at around 67 million, comprising a huge workforce in developing and developed countries, and who work for private households, often without clear terms of employment, unregistered in any book, and excluded from the scope of labour legislation.
ILO indicates that women are dramatically overrepresented (83 per cent of domestic workers) and often come from particular racial, ethnic and socially disadvantaged populations.
Also, the organization argues that exclusion of domestic workers from legal protection and informal employment in domestic work are among key drivers of women’s informal employment, vulnerability and unequal treatment in the labour market.
Zeroing down to Tanzania, ILO data indicate that in Tanzania, the national domestic work-study conducted in 2012-2013 provided evidence of high incidence of unpaid domestic work and excessive in-kind payments, informal and strongly personalized employment arrangements, and child workers.
Tanzania is home to more than 55 million people, and more importantly, the labour landscape has been featured with various dynamics.
According to the Tanzanian National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) data, the projected statistics show an increase in the labour force of 2.0 million people over the past five years: from 2014 to 2018.
The national labour force has grown from 22.3 million people in 2014 to 24.3 million people in 2018. In addition, the number of people with employment has increased from 20.0 million in 2014 to 22.0 million in 2018.
Also, there has been a decline in the rate of unemployment in the country from 10.3 per cent in 2014 to 9.7 per cent in 2018.
However, ILO argues that while labour regulations set a minimum wage and other terms of employment, compliance is low. Based on the Domestic Workers Survey, domestic workers in Tanzania represent five per cent of the total population of 15 – 64 years.
Women make up to 75 per cent and tend to be much younger than men. 78 per cent of female domestic workers are aged 15-24 years old while only 52 per cent of male domestic workers are in the same age group.
Huduma Smart solution
Balbina Gulam founder of Huduma Smart is a 21-year old computer programmer with a healthy fervour for innovation and unwavering energy towards levelling the informal-working playing field for women employed in the domestic labour sector.
As the 2019 Anzisha-Young Entrepreneur award winner, she comes to the fold, to wipe off the cemented stereotype that takes domestic workers as mere people doing rather menial and low paying jobs.
In Tanzania, various reports including the ILO have indicated that domestic workers tend to be exposed to physical and sexual violence, but also to underpayment and sometimes no payment at all.
Balbina’s solutions negate that. She has dedicated her technical and human resources, not only to design a system in which households recruit workers properly, per ILO standards, but her company provides air-tight certified training to domestic workers, which adds a decent value to their balance sheet.
“We train these workers—men and women from different parts of the country—then allocate them to various clients who sign into our platform and fill in their request for a worker of their choice,” Balbina said.
Despite being rejected by clients during her pitching sessions due to her age (she was 19 three years ago when she started) before she took her startup to the wider stage. With help of her team of five, her startup has managed to train more than 155 workers, facilitated the recruitment over 102 workers and served over 123 clients, since 2019.
“We are using digital marketing to strike partnerships and find more clients. And we have received requests for a franchise in neighbouring countries. So, we are looking for that possibility also” she added.
With the help of her revenue stream models, via recruitment fee of around $50 per worker and 20 per cent commissions, Huduma Smart anticipates to extend its base across the region and develop a mobile application shortly.
“Through Huduma Smart domestic workers get a sense of pride and respect they deserve, but also puts them in competitive level in the labour market,” she said.
The labour-related startup based in Dar es Salaam looks forward to reaching more domestic work aspirants upcountry with no access to the internet nor smartphone, but with access to a mobile phone, via an Artificial Intelligence-driven chatbox.
The chatbox will be fetching relevant data and assigning responses to end-users regarding the various request made in the chatbox.
“This will allow us to be a step ahead. As we all know, most of the domestic workers come from rural areas, so this enables us to reach them prior and customize their talents, and assign them to better and decent working environments” Balbina added.
Huduma Smart is engaged in stiff competition with informal domestic worker agents, recruitment agencies, and cleaning companies, all hunting for the client’s shilling. However, the startup is confident of tapping into unreached markets across the country in the next coming years.
