Good afternoon. Early each morning, thousands of domestic workers travel from the outskirts of Mozambique’s cities to cook, clean and care for other people’s children. Their labour allows many of their employers, especially women, to leave home and earn a salary. Some of those workers, in turn, depend on relatives or still more poorly paid helpers to care for their own families.
This chain of dependency supports much of urban working life, but remains largely absent from official statistics and ordinary labour protections. Agreements are usually verbal, wages vary widely and employers determine working hours. A worker can serve the same household for years without a contract, social security registration or reliable proof of what she is owed.
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Domestic service in Mozambique also carries a colonial inheritance. Settler households depended on poorly paid African servants whose work was treated as personal service rather than employment carrying enforceable rights. Independence changed who could occupy the employer’s side of that relationship without removing its underlying hierarchy. Black elites and an expanding urban middle class inherited a household economy still sustained by cheap and weakly protected labour.
Decree 52/2026 attempts to change that. It generally requires written contracts and social security registration, limits working hours and provides for leave, weekly rest, protection against harassment and a minimum wage to be fixed later by the government. The rules enter into force 180 days after their publication on 3 September.
The likely effect will not be uniform. Workers employed by wealthier households may receive contracts, contributions and paid leave. Those employed by families with less money—or competing for work in a crowded market—may be offered fewer days, dismissed or shifted into casual arrangements. The regulation could improve conditions in the most visible part of the sector while driving the rest further out of sight.
