Migração e trabalho escravo doméstico: jornadas de trabalhadoras domésticas migrantes em Teresina (1994-2020)

Abstract

The general objective of this research is to analyze how the persistence of domestic work analogous to slavery among migrant women from the interior of Piauí results from the historical continuity of slaveholding structures, articulating inequalities of gender, race, class, and territory. The investigation sought to understand how forced migration, driven by poverty, land concentration, and state omission, transforms individual trajectories into systematic experiences of exploitation within urban households, especially in Teresina. The study is based on the understanding that discourses of opportunity, care, and social mobility—sustained by employing families, the State, and racial imaginaries—have been essential to legitimizing practices of servitude, confinement, and violence reproduced in the domestic sphere. The historical formation of this labor relationship reveals that, since the post-abolition period, domestic service has been constructed as a social destiny for Black and poor women, functioning as one of the main mechanisms of updating slaveholding hierarchies. The research also shows that the complicity of the State and the weakening of public policies have contributed to the maintenance of these violations, especially given the informality that still marks around 70% of the sector, the difficulty of inspecting private households, and the lack of accountability of employers. This dynamic is reinforced by cultural practices that naturalize the presence of poor women as “almost part of the family,” erasing labor relations and concealing situations of confinement, exhaustive workdays, psychological violence, and denial of rights. The methodology adopted was qualitative, based on bibliographic review, document analysis, labor legislation, and, above all, semi-structured interviews with three migrant women from José de Freitas. Works by authors such as Davis (2016), Ribeiro (2017), Berth (2019), Mesquita (2023), Pereira da Silva and Araújo (2024), and Torres and Mendes (2022) were used, among others. The sources consulted and the narratives collected demonstrated that domestic work analogous to slavery persists through symbolic and structural mechanisms that combine racism, patriarchy, territorial inequality, and labor precarization. Despite legal advances, such as the Domestic Workers’ Amendment (PEC das Domésticas) and Complementary Law No. 150/2015, the gap between legislation and reality remains profound, while the domestic environment continues to function as a space of impunity and reproduction of slaveholding practices. On the other hand, there is a strengthening of collective struggles, union actions, and support networks among the workers themselves, who, by sharing their memories, become protagonists of resistance and denunciation. Thus, the reality of domestic work in Piauí expresses the contradiction between formally guaranteed rights and the persistence of structural inequality, evidencing that the current model privileges the maintenance of historical relations of domination to the detriment of dignity, freedom, and full citizenship for these women.