Interna
(Live-in caregiver)
Living with the person you work for and working for the person you live with.
Being a live-in caregiver is for many migrant women the most viable entry-level resource when they first arrive. It provides them a place to live and the ability to save money that they can send back to their home country. Having a live-in caregiver is for many families a solution to cover a care need.
This is a 24-hour job, usually 7 days a week, unregulated and often without labor rights; it is a symbiosis between caregiver and cared-for, which builds an intimate coexistence in a framework of mutual dependence.
Interna observes the lives of Diana, Liliana and Mery, three live-in caregivers from Colombia and Honduras in Barcelona.
Diana
‘The only thing I miss about Honduras is my mother’.
Liliana
‘It’s harder to deal with the people here thanwith the people back home. They always look at you differently’.
Mery
‘My daughter says that she is no longer the child I left inColombia, that she is a little person and that shedoes the things I instilled in her.’
