Conceptualising domestic servitude as a violation of the human right to housing and reframing Australian policy responses

ABSTRACT This article makes a twofold contribution to a human rights-centred response to domestic servitude as a modern form of slavery. First, it offers a conceptualisation of domestic servitude as a comprehensive and specific violation of the human right to housing, based on a reading of the right to housing as sitting at a crucial juncture of the public and private. Victims of domestic servitude experience a violation of the right to housing, the nature of which strikingly demonstrates both how housing sits at the nexus of the public and the private; and that the enjoyment of rights in both those spheres is crucial to a person’s experience of dignity, peace and security. This conceptualisation deepens our understanding of the right to housing, and the condition of domestic servitude as a violation of human rights. This article’s second aim is to demonstrate how the commitment to fulfilling the human right to housing underpins a better policy response to modern slavery in Australia. It opens a conversation on how a social rights-based response is one that would better serve victim/survivors, offering a more meaningful and targeted response to the harms they suffer.