The woman who cleans your house in Lusaka is not doing you a favour for pocket money. In Zambian law she is a worker, with a minimum wage set by statute and a right to conditions agreed in advance, and the fact that her workplace is your kitchen rather than an office changes none of that. The private setting is exactly why the rules get bent, and why they need saying out loud.
The country’s own rights watchdog has now said it plainly. Following a cases-review meeting held on 14 and 15 April 2026, the Human Rights Commission raised concern about the continued underpayment of domestic workers, security guards and general workers. Its chairperson, Pamela Sambo, told a briefing in Lusaka that “despite the existence of legislation prescribing minimum wages for domestic and general workers, many employers continue to pay wages far below the legally established thresholds.” Of the 100 cases the Commission reviewed, 82 were resolved through mediation or corrective action and 18 remained under investigation, and Sambo singled out these low-paid workers as among the most vulnerable in the labour force.
The rule inside the gate
The legislation she refers to is not vague. The Employment Code (Domestic Workers Minimum Wages and Conditions of Employment) Order, Statutory Instrument No. 49 of 2023, set a minimum wage for domestic workers of K1,300 a month, inclusive of housing, transport and lunch allowances, and it came into effect on 1 January 2024 after consultations through the Tripartite Consultative Labour Council. That figure is a floor, not a target, and it comes attached to conditions: agreed hours, rest, and terms that are not invented after a disagreement. A household that pays below it, or that keeps everything on a vague verbal understanding, is not being generous or informal. It is outside the law.
The reason underpayment persists is worth naming, because it is not usually cruelty. It is the belief that a home is a private space where the normal rules pause, that a live-in arrangement blurs work and family into something that cannot be counted in hours, and that a worker who never complains must be content. Each of these is comfortable and each is wrong. The Commission’s caseload is the evidence: the complaints exist, they are simply raised late, once trust has already broken.
What being an employer actually requires
Treating domestic work as work is less complicated than it sounds, and it turns on a few concrete habits. Agree the wage against the statutory floor and pay it in full and on time, keeping a simple record of what was paid and when. Settle the working days, the hours and the duties before the first morning, and write them down, however plainly. Distinguish clearly between a live-out arrangement, where a worker comes for set days at a daily or monthly rate, and a live-in arrangement, where accommodation is part of the deal and the boundary between working and resting hours has to be spelled out rather than assumed. These are the exact points where private households drift, and where a written understanding protects both sides from the slow slide into a dispute that ends up in front of a labour officer or the Commission.
None of this strips the warmth out of a long relationship between a family and the person who keeps its home. It does the opposite. Clarity is what lets goodwill survive, because nobody is quietly keeping score of a promise that was never actually made.
It also matters because the worker is not without recourse. The Commission’s own numbers show the point: of the cases it reviewed, most were resolved through mediation, redress or corrective action rather than left to fester, which means underpayment complaints do get taken up when they are raised. A domestic worker can approach a labour officer, and disputes that once ended a job in silence can now end in a settlement. For a household, that reframes the arithmetic. Paying below the floor or leaving terms vague is not a private economy that no one will notice; it is an exposure that surfaces the moment a working relationship breaks down, and it usually breaks down eventually.
Putting it on a professional footing
This is where the practical tools matter, and where a platform is useful as a mechanism rather than a slogan. Kleana, which operates in Zambia alongside South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana, asks both the household and the cleaner to accept a professional charter before an introduction is made. The charter states in plain words what the law assumes: that the engagement is work and only work, that the terms are settled up front, that dignity, including clean water, a place to sit and access to a toilet, is not negotiable, and that either side can end the arrangement or report a breach. It also treats live-in and live-out as different deals with different terms, which is precisely the distinction households most often fudge. The platform does not set your wage or become the employer; it simply makes the professional footing the starting point rather than an afterthought.
Treat the work as work
The decisive move for any household is small and can be made before the next payday. Check what you are paying against the statutory minimum and correct it if it falls short. Write down the days, hours, duties, rate and notice, and keep a record of each payment. Name the arrangement honestly as live-in or live-out and agree the boundaries that go with it. The Human Rights Commission’s concern is not an abstract complaint about strangers; it is a description of ordinary homes where a real job was treated as an informal kindness. The gate at the front of your yard does not mark the edge of the law. Behind it, work is still work, and the person doing it is owed exactly what the statute says she is.
Source: Kleana Africa – kleana.africa
