JUSTICE AT LAST

CLEANERS, gardeners, nannies – many households struggle to function without them, as the long weeks of hard lockdown last year proved.

And yet until very recently South Africa’s million-strong domestic workforce weren’t recognised as employees in terms of the law, which meant that they didn’t qualify for any aid from the national Compensation Fund if things went wrong.

If they were injured on the job, they couldn’t expect any help from the fund to pay their medical bills, or compensation if they couldn’t work for months as a result of a workplace accident.

These are benefits most other workers take for granted but because the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act dates back to 1993 and government hasn’t changed it, domestic workers remained excluded.

That was until Sylvia Mahlangu, the