The Rio de Janeiro State Council for Women’s Rights (CEDIM/RJ) exhibited on December 21st, the documentary “I am Nair Jane – The Struggle of Domestic Workers”, produced by CEDIM/RJ in honor of this important representative of the category. Leila Linhares Barsted represented CEPIA in this tribute.
She is a retired domestic worker and a still active union member. Black woman, nanny since she was nine years old, whose life story reflects that of thousands of other domestic workers.
Nair joined the Catholic Worker Youth (JOC) in the 1960s and became president of the Professional Association of Domestic Workers of Rio de Janeiro. In the early 1970s, she participated in its transformation into a union, of which she would become the first president in 1988.
Nair participated in the formation of the Central Única dos Trabalhadores (CUT), was one of the founders of the Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Domestic Workers, in 1988, and of the union of the category in Baixada Fluminense.
Nair Jane was one of the interlocutors in the 1988 Constitution, together with her comrade Lenira Maria de Carvalho, both of whom went to Congressman Ulisses Guimarães to present him with the domestic workers’ demands.
In 2003, she received the Bertha Lutz Award, from the Federal Senate, and in 2019 she was honored with the “Leolinda de Figueiredo Daltro Woman-Citizen Diploma”, at the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro.
Nair Jane is part of CEPIA’s Associate Assembly and is a leader of Brazilian democracy!
