Undefined roles, dire realities of domestic work

For two years, 17-year-old Urmi Thopna* started work at 5 am every morning. After waking up, she would cook and clean for her employers in Bengaluru — Mr and Mrs Vatsa*. Not even an adult herself, she was occupied by childcare and various chores for 18 straight hours each day. In addition to the arduous working days, she would face verbal and physical violence from her employers. She was beaten with cricket bats, injured by scissors on her neck and burnt on her hands using an iron box. 

Urmi hails from a remote village in Tezpur, Assam. Before her transfer to Bengaluru, she was employed in Delhi. Her agency relocated her without notifying her parents. The agency took an advance payment from the Vatsas, with the agreement that they would pay Urmi a meagre sum of Rs 1,800 per month. She never saw this money. 

Urmi lived in fear for her life for two years, before being rescued and taken to a shelter home. It was after the intervention of the Domestic Workers Rights Union that a case was filed with the local police station against the employers. Given the protracted nature of the legal proceedings, which Urmi could not afford to sustain, she ultimately withdrew the case and opted for an out-of-court settlement.

This is not just Urmi’s story, but an everyday reality for a large number of migrant domestic workers, who work as 'live-in domestic workers'. This sordid world reveals a mafia of some placement agencies that are blatantly involved in the trafficking of girls and women. Many instances have come to light where girls trafficked for domestic work are cheated and pushed into sex work. Most of these women and girls hail from northeast Indian states, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal and surrounding areas. 

Domestic workers endure long working hours and receive minimal or inadequate wages. They lack social protection from both the state and their employers. Furthermore, they often face indignity and sexual harassment.

In light of these challenges, it is crucial to consider how domestic work can be recognised and structured as decent work, in alignment with the International Labour Organisation’s (ILO) conventions.

In India, there is a clear social pattern of trafficking, wherein the overwhelming victims are Dalits and Adivasis. According to the UK’s Dalit Freedom Network, today, a Dalit in India is 27 times more likely to be trafficked than anyone else. Marginalisation and deprivation due to caste are at the heart of slavery, trafficking, forced labour, child labour and domestic servitude. 

Many times, the workers face caste discrimination and assaults on their dignity. 

Domestic workers are productive workers and need to be recognised as such. Domestic workers contribute 4 million a year to the economy. 

Stakeholders involved

In the case of domestic work, stakeholders involved have to be understood in the context of the ambiguity in which the domestic workers are situated — the arbitrary employer-employee relationship, personalisation of this relationship, privacy of households, irregular and variable terms of employment, no legal framework and unstructured enforcement mechanisms. 

While the visible stakeholders are the employers, workers, and the government, the most invisible, yet relevant ones are the placement agencies. With no comprehensive study or data on the number of placement agencies and their functioning, they still remain a necessary evil for those seeking livelihoods. There has been very little political will to bring out a policy to regulate the involvement of these agencies in trafficking.

Issues of governance

Navigating the complexities of domestic work is particularly challenging because it occurs within the private realm of households, where the relationship between the employer and the domestic worker is deeply personal. Additionally, the household is not categorised as a workplace, making it difficult to address any harm that occurs there. Despite international ratifications (like the International Labour Organisation’s Domestic Workers Convention 2011), which recognise domestic work as decent work, it is still not officially recognised as work in India. This complicates governance and oversight of this critical sector, where issues regarding non-payment of wages, overtime and criminal cases are frequent. 

To this end, it also becomes the State’s responsibility to identify and recognise domestic workers and to accord legal recognition to the employer’s home as the formal workplace. Further, there is the need for a legislative framework to regulate wages, working hours, working conditions, leave facilities and social security benefits such as pension and insurance. 

Many of the proposed measures for improving the conditions of domestic workers could be integrated into existing legislation, thanks to the efforts of various organisations and unions. Existing laws such as the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the Inter-State Migrant Workers Act, 1979, the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013, and the Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008, provide a solid framework. Other policies like the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2019, could be expanded to include domestic workers. 

So, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. There are many national laws and policies that just need to be made applicable to domestic workers and many International Conventions and Declarations that need to be ratified and implemented: the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families, to name a few. 

In 2011, the ILO passed the Domestic Workers Convention, and 18 countries have ratified it so far. But India has yet to do the same. India’s silence and inaction on this front make it a party to the large-scale trafficking and slavery of young girls and workers. The convention prescribes the setting up of a tripartite board (with representatives from the government, employers and employees) to ensure the implementation of minimum standards and benefits. 

The political understanding of care work and the gendered outlook towards housework as ‘unpaid labour’ is one of the reasons for apathy. Another is the notion of domestic work as being last on the hierarchy of work, from a productivity outlook as well as a caste outlook. 

There are bright spots: A few Indian states have taken significant steps forward. Tamil Nadu, for instance, has established a dedicated welfare board for domestic workers, proposing social protection policies to support them. Similarly, Maharashtra has initiatives in place to recognise and register domestic workers officially as workers. Meanwhile, Karnataka is considering the creation of a task force to govern and support this particular workforce.

Key challenges 

The lack of a database as well as proof of work is a major challenge. There is no registration of workers or employers, making everything arbitrary and non-negotiable. Cases relating to salary, leave or dismissal often become difficult, as employers can even deny that the workers have worked in their house. The challenge with theft and sexual harassment cases is that there are no mechanisms for redressal.

In the case of migrants and live-in workers, the challenges are threefold. Risks include trafficking, no source registration, vulnerability to placement agencies, the mafia-like operations of these agencies and alienation.

When we rescue domestic workers in dire situations, our challenge is to help them overcome their trauma and help them with counselling and legal interventions. However, the placement agencies are so well-organised, that till today, neither are they registered at the Labour Department, nor has any action been taken against them. 

(Names changed to protect identity)

(Geeta Menon is Joint Secretary, Domestic Workers Rights Union)