Why does India fail to protect its home workers despite decades of abuse

Smith (not her real name), a home -made assistant in Delhi for 28 years, cannot forget the day she was beaten in public by one of her employers.

The woman had accused Smith, a woman from Dalit from the most discriminated against caste in the fortified social hierarchy of Hinduism – to steal the earrings of her daughter and then refused to pay her.

“After many requests, I encountered her in a public place. Then she began to abuse me and hit me. I held her hands to stop the abuse, but the guards came and pulled me out of the residential society and locked the gate,” Smita says.

In the end, she was paid – dead 1000 rupees ($ 11; 9 pounds) per month, washed and washing dishes – after a more sympathetic family intervened on her behalf. But she was forbidden to enter the residential community and did not bother to go to the police, as she believed they would not take action.

Smith’s story is one of hundreds of thousands of accounts For abuse, abuse and sexual assault reported by home workers in India. Most are women and many are migrants in the country belonging to castes that are considered down.

Last month, the Supreme Court of India expressed concerns about their operation and asked the Federal Government to examine the creation of a law that would protect them from abuse.

But this is not the first time an attempt has been made to create such a legal framework. Despite years of intercession from different groups and federal ministries, no such law has been passed.

Individual bills proposed in 2008 and 2016 aimed at registering local workers and improving their working conditions have not yet been accepted. A national policy prepared in 2019 aimed at involving local workers under existing labor laws has not been implemented.

Sonia George of the Association of Self -employed women (SEWA), which was part of the working group that formulates the policy project, calls it one of the “most comprehensive policies for local workers”, but says consistent governments have not fulfilled it.

As a result, the huge army of domestic assistants in India must rely on the employer’s reputation for the foundations such as salaries or leave or even a basic value of respect. According to official statistics, India has 4.75 million local workers, including three million women. But the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that real numbers are between 20 and 80 million.

“We have patronizing relations with the help, not for employment,” says Professor Neeteta of the Women’s Development Center.

“This maintains the status quo and is one of the largest obstacles for the regulation and legalization of internal work.”

Since things are, private homes are not considered a restaurant or workplace, so that homework falls beyond the competence of social defense, such as minimum wages, the right to safe working conditions, the right of unification and access to social security schemes.

At least 14 Indian states, including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnaka, Kerala, Megalaya, Rajasthan and Tamil Nad India, as local workers in the laws of local workers in India, such as anti -sexual laws for child labor in India, with local laws within the local workers in the laws of domestic labor in India, such as the laws of local workers in Indian their scope.

But there is a very little awareness among local workers that they can take advantage of these provisions, says G -ja George, adding that the nature of the profession also represents challenges.

Workers are scattered and there is no mechanism for registration or even identifying them, since they usually do not sign any kind of contract with their employers.

“We will need to create systems to register home workers – overcoming their” invisibility “is a big step towards regulating the profession,” she says.

This also applies to employers. “They are completely invisible to the system and therefore escape from accountability and responsibility,” says G -Ja George.

The caste system also puts additional complexities – workers from some castes may agree to clean toilets in a home, while others from a little different castes may not be.

In the end, the whole concept of homework must be redefined, says G -George. “Homework is considered unskilled work, but this is not really so. You can’t take care of a sick person or cook food without being qualified,” she adds.

In addition to not accepting its own laws or implementing its own policy, India also has not yet ratified the MOTE 189 Convention – a remarkable international agreement that aims to ensure that local workers have the same rights and defenses as Other workers. Despite the vote in favor of the 2011 Convention, India still does not comply with all its provisions.

India has a “moral obligation” to comply with the ILO Convention, says G -Ja George. She adds that having a law will also help regulate private recruitment agencies and prevent the operation of domestic workers who go abroad to work.

Last year, the rich Hindu family made titles after a Swiss court found them guilty of exploiting their home workers. The family was charged with trafficking vulnerable Indians to Switzerland and forcing them To work in their mansion for painfully long hours without proper pay. Family lawyers said they would appeal the sentence.

Perhaps the simplest explanation for decades of inaction to the tide of abuse lies in the conflict of interest that this regulation puts on the persons making decisions in India, suggests G -Ja George.

“At the end of the day, people on the table who have the power to give up a bill or law are also employers of domestic workers and those who take advantage of the status quo,” she says. “So, for any real change in the system, we first need a change in our thinking.”

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