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Ecuador’s Domestic Workers Profiled

Domestic workers in Ecuador need to respect their work to change attitudes, according to a long-term live-in help. Lenny Quirós, 48, has been a domestic worker for more than 20 years but chooses never to work more than two years for the same employer as a puertas a dentro, or “behind-doors”, as a live-in help is called.

Abuse Behind Closed Doors

Victoria Jiménez is one of 10 children. By the age of five, she knew how to wash, cook, clean and look after those younger than her. At 12 her mother, unable to provide for her, left Jiménez and her sister in the house of a seamstress to work in exchange for clothes. It was then, as a domestic worker, that she first encountered abuse.