Spanish women are proud of their feminist achievements. But one group of women hardly benefits from it: the “internas,” domestic workers who live with the families they work for.
When Soledad Lucero Toapanta left her homeland of Ecuador, she was 23 and her son Diego was less than a year old. Soledad wanted to earn money quickly in Spain so that he could later lead a better life in Ecuador. But things turned out differently. “It never occurred to me that I wouldn’t come back,” Soledad says today. “I was devastated that I had left my seven-month-old son there to look after another baby like a mother.”
Soledad, actually a psychotherapist, initially only found jobs as an “interna” due to a lack of a work permit, i.e. as a domestic worker who lives with her employers and looks after children or the elderly. Work around the clock, often poorly paid.
Sometimes she didn’t even know what day it was, says Soledad looking back. She hardly dared to eat something in between. She will never forget the day when, at her first job as a “housemaid” in Madrid, her suitcase suddenly appeared at the door because her employers had moved.
Nevertheless, Soledad took on more “internal” jobs. But the longer she stayed, the clearer it became to her that she wanted to get out.
Soledad now lives in northern Spain, has founded an advice center for migrant women and helps those who are currently suffering from poor working conditions as “interns”. What she hears from them is still bad. “Many are sexually exploited. If you’re ‘interna’, they think they can just grab your ass.”
No employment contract without papers
Around 370,000 people officially work in Spanish households, 40,000 of them as “interns”, the number of unreported cases is probably high. Because anyone who agrees to poor internal conditions usually does not have an employment contract.
Migrants can get a residence permit after three years if they prove that they have lived and worked in Spain during this time. Afterwards they could get a regular contract – if the families and employers cooperate.
The aid organization “Oxfam Intermon” has been fighting for more rights for the entire home care sector in Spain for years. This is an extremely precarious area, says Raquel Checa Rubio, responsible for the social disadvantage department.
Around 15 percent of the nurses lived in poverty, earning less than 16 euros a day. And nine out of ten “internas” are foreigners. The problem behind it: The state spends too little money on care and childcare.
Jamileth is one of many “internas” – she describes the working conditions as “modern slavery”.
Height Employment rate – and many “internals”
And this despite the fact that Spanish women are proud of their emancipated society. Almost 79 percent of Spanish women worked full-time in 2022, compared to only around 53 percent in Germany. And when it comes to women in management positions, Spain is also ahead of Germany with almost 35 percent, where, according to Eurostat, women held around 29 percent of management positions in 2022.
The fact that many children of Spanish women are looked after by Latin American domestic workers can be seen every day in the playgrounds of Madrid’s upper class districts: some of those who spend the morning there with “their children” are “internas”, the playground is one of the rare opportunities for contact to the outside world.
Soledad also worked in a neighborhood like this: It’s a triumph for women that they have better jobs these days than before. But without the domestic workers, many working Spanish women would not be able to do their jobs: “They can only do that because we – the Latin Americans – are there.”
What is received by the “Internas”?
And politics? Spain has a left-wing government that is committed to feminist politics and implemented various – some highly controversial – laws for women’s rights in its first legislature. A reform in favor of domestic workers caused less commotion: since 2022, they have been entitled to pay into the unemployment support system and receive benefits accordingly. The law also protects you from unfair dismissal.
The only question is whether these discounts reach the “internas”. For Raquel Checa Rubio, the Oxfam representative, the new regulations definitely represent progress. But they now have to be implemented and, above all, monitored, she said on the sidelines of a meeting of various organizations that advocate for the rights of the “internals”. And even more important: The state must provide funds so that the care of children and people in need of care can be guaranteed.
Soledad is also at the meeting for her association. One of many of this kind. In the end, all the women hold hands and loudly demand: “Equal rights for everyone, day after day!”