Why India fails to protect its domestic workers despite decades of abuse

Smitha, a pseudonym for a domestic worker who has worked in Delhi for 28 years, can still not forget the day she was publicly beaten by her employer. The employer accused Smitha—a Dalit woman from the most discriminated against caste in India's strict Hindu social hierarchy—of stealing her daughter's earrings and refused to pay her wages.

"After repeated requests went unanswered, I confronted her in public. She started verbally abusing and hitting me. I grabbed her hand to stop her from continuing the violence, but the security guards came and dragged me out of the residential area and locked the gate," Smitha recalled. Eventually, after a compassionate family intervened, she received a meager 1,000 rupees (approximately $11 USD or £9 GBP) for a month of sweeping, mopping, and washing dishes. However, she was banned from the residential area, and she did not report the incident to the police, believing they would not take action.

Smitha's experience is just one of the thousands of cases of abuse, assault, and sexual assault reported by domestic workers in India. These workers are mostly women, many of whom are migrants from within the country, and they often belong to socially disadvantaged castes. Last month, the Supreme Court of India expressed concern about the exploitation of domestic workers and asked the federal government to consider enacting laws to protect them from abuse.

In fact, this is not the first attempt to establish such a legal framework. Despite years of advocacy by various groups and federal departments, relevant laws have consistently failed to pass. Independent bills proposed in 2008 and 2016 aimed at registering domestic workers and improving their working conditions have not been adopted. A national policy drafted in 2019 to include domestic workers under existing labor laws has also not been implemented.

Sonia George of the Self-Employed Women's Association (Sewa), who participated in the drafting of the policy, called it "one of the most comprehensive policies on domestic workers to date," but she also stated that successive governments have failed to implement it. As a result, India's vast domestic worker population can only rely on the goodwill of their employers for wages, time off, and even basic respect. Official statistics show that there are 4.75 million domestic workers in India, including 3 million women. However, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that the actual number is between 20 million and 80 million.

Professor Neetha N. of the Centre for Women's Development Studies stated, "We have a patronizing relationship with domestic workers, rather than an employer-employee relationship. This maintains the status quo and is one of the biggest obstacles to regulating and legitimizing domestic work." Currently, private residences are not considered businesses or workplaces, so domestic work is not covered by social protections such as minimum wage, safe working conditions, the right to form unions, and access to social security schemes.

At least 14 Indian states, including Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka, Kerala, Meghalaya, Rajasthan, and Tamil Nadu, have mandated minimum wages for domestic workers, and some federal laws, such as India's anti-sexual harassment and child labor laws, also cover domestic workers. However, Ms. George stated that domestic workers have very little awareness of the provisions they can utilize, and she added that the nature of the industry also presents challenges.

Domestic workers are scattered across various locations, and there is no registration mechanism, making it impossible to even identify them, as they typically do not sign any form of contract with their employers. "We need to establish systems to register domestic workers—overcoming their 'invisibility' is a big step towards regulating the industry," she said. This also applies to employers. "They are completely invisible in the system and can therefore evade responsibility," Ms. George said.

The caste system also introduces further complexities—domestic workers from certain castes may agree to clean toilets in homes, while those from slightly different castes may not. Ms. George believes that the entire concept of domestic work should ultimately be redefined. "Domestic work is considered unskilled labor, but that is not the case. You cannot care for a patient or cook food without skills," she added.

In addition to failing to pass its own laws or implement its own policies, India has not ratified ILO Convention 189—a landmark international agreement aimed at ensuring that domestic workers enjoy the same rights and protections as other workers. Although India voted in favor of the convention in 2011, it has not fully complied with all of its provisions. Ms. George stated that India has a "moral obligation" to comply with the ILO convention. She added that enacting laws would also help regulate private recruitment agencies and prevent the exploitation of domestic workers working abroad.

Last year, the wealthy Hinduja family made headlines after a Swiss court found them guilty of exploiting domestic workers. The family was accused of trafficking vulnerable Indians to Switzerland and forcing them to work long hours in their mansion without proper compensation. The family's lawyers stated that they would appeal the verdict.

Ms. George believes that the simplest explanation for decades of inaction in the face of a wave of abuse may lie in the conflict of interest that such regulation poses for Indian policymakers. "Ultimately, the people who have the power to sign bills or laws are also the employers of domestic workers and the beneficiaries of maintaining the status quo," she said. "Therefore, to achieve real systemic change, we first need to change our mindset."