This study examines the phenomenon of child domestic labor focusing on the experiences of female domestic workers in Ethiopia. The testimonies of these workers were gathered through an ethnographic investigation conducted in Ethiopia between 2018 and 2019. From a young age, these girls migrate from rural to urban areas to work for households of various social classes. Sometimes they work for middle or wealthy class households, other times for lower class households struggling to survive in urban settings. The residences where they perform domestic work can accommodate numerous people or, in some cases, consist of households with few members, sometimes single women in need of domestic assistance for their survival. The young workers take care of various domestic tasks, look after children and sick elderly, and run various errands. Domestic work intertwines with traditional practices of fostering and placing female and male children within extended family networks. The testimonies of the workers and those they work for highlight the ambiguity between what is commonly recognized as paid work and other forms of unpaid domestic work, carried out within a kinship ideology. Rhetorical discourses on the role of reliable daughters, welcomed by urban households, conceal the complex reality of domestic work in Ethiopia: the establishment and dissolution of bonds (both kin and non) between urban and rural households; the various forms of interdependence, conflict, and reciprocity between families; the role of mediators facilitating the placement of domestic workers within a specific households; the conditions of labor exploitation and the emancipatory and alternative paths built by women.