Domestic Workers’ Treatment and Rights Issues in Colonial Korea: 1920s~1930s

This paper explores the discussion on labor rights and human rights for domestic workers during colonial period, revisioning it as the origin of the discussion that has garnered recent attention in Korea. During the Japanese colonial period when domestic workers first emerged, it brought up social issues regarding their treatment with the angle of labor right, abreast of increasing number of the Korean workers employed in Japanese households. From the mid-1920s onwards, it became noticeable that Korean women, often referred to as 'Omoni', were employed as domestic workers in Japanese households. At that time, Korean media portrayed such inter-racial employment negatively, urging Korean families to treat domestic workers well to keep them in Korean homes. However, despite these negative perceptions, predominantly expressed by Korean male intellectuals in the media, the reality revealed a preference among Korean women for working in Japanese homes due to higher wages and better working conditions. While discourse on the treatment of domestic workers persisted, leading to the replacement of titles like 'Eomum' with 'Sikmo (housekeeper)' to mitigate lower-class connotations, there was a critical limitation in the discussion. Specifically, it largely overlooked the plight of underage girls, who comprised the majority of domestic workers at the time, neglecting the genuine human rights issues surrounding them. Such historical traces echoes with the general flaw in discussions on domestic services in today, which still fail to adequately represent the voices of workers in the real world in policy discussions and to protect their rights.