Welfare of Domestic Workers in India Problems and Solutions

Avishek Chakraborty1
ABSTRACT
Domestic workers in India have always been categorised under the umbrella of unorganised
labour and have been excluded from the laws and welfare schemes of the government. As
per the results of Employment-Unemployment Survey of National Sample Survey
Organisation, the estimated number of domestic workers employed in the country was 41.3
lakh during 2011-12. With the maximum number of domestic worker being women and
children, there has been many cases and reports of exploitation. No formal contracts ensuring
an employer-employee relationship, lack of organisation, poor bargaining power, no
legislative protection and inadequate welfare measures with no provision for weekly
holidays, maternity leave and health benefits are some of the key issues that need to be
addressed. In 2010, the National Commission for Women (NCW) had drafted the Domestic
Workers Welfare and Social Security Act, 2010 Bill highlighting the exploitative nature of
domestic work by spurious placement agencies. It addressed the working conditions of
domestic workers, including their registration. However, it has remained as a proposal and
the law is yet to be passed. Domestic workers invariably represent the more marginalised
communities in society and therefore the need for a law to enforce the human rights of
domestic workers is being strongly felt.

1. INTRODUCTION
From the time of independence in 1947 in India, there had been significant
changes in respect of recognition of workers rights. After 1947 there had been a lot of efforts
in ousting the social and cultural differences between classes in Indian society with an
attempt to dissolve all the ill practices and customs which had become a deep rooted problem
in India. The policy makers realised that if the workers are given protection and if they can be
vested with some basic natural rights, the class of underprivileged workers can also play a
significant role in national development in countrys GDP. Indian Parliament had passed
several statutes to protect the workers, who are part of recognised list of schedule
employments. However, in none of the laws enacted by Central government, domestic
1 Assistant Professor, School of Law, Christ University, Bengaluru.
1

workers were recognised under the list of scheduled employments. Policymakers never
prioritised the need to regulate or to protect the rights of domestic workers in India.
Over the past few years, there have been innumerable cases of domestic workers
nearly all of them female, many of them minors being abused and exploited by their
employers. The abuses range from withholding of wages to starvation, not allowing time for
sleep or rest, to beatings, torture and sexual exploitation. Paid domestic work continues to be
excluded from the central list of scheduled employments under the Minimum Wages Act of
1948. It is not covered under either the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 or the Workmens
Compensation Act, 1923 or the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 or the
Maternity Benefit Act, 1961. The National Commission for Women drafted a Domestic
Workers and Welfare and Social Security Act, 2010 Bill. It is accumulating dust. Therefore,
it is evident that there is no national law for domestic workers and they have been excluded
from various laws that provide social security benefit for workers in general. Domestic
workers invariably represent the more marginalised communities in society and therefore the
need for a law to enforce the human rights of domestic workers is being strongly felt.

2. PRESENT STATUS OF DOMESTIC WORKERS IN INDIA

Governments all over the world find it very difficult to estimate accurately the
number of domestic workers. Some of part-time domestic workers may not report domestic
work as their main occupation, as they would take this work occasionally when work is not
available in their villages. There are varying definitions of domestic work in national
statistics. Sometimes sample surveys conducted miss out on domestic workers intensive
inhabitations, which remained concealed in slums.2 However, as per the results of
Employment-Unemployment Survey of National Sample Survey organisation, the estimated
number of domestic workers employed in the country was 41.3 lakh during 2011-12. National
estimates for 2004-05 suggest 4.75 million workers were employed by private households,
3.05 million of these were urban women. In India around 93% of working force belongs to

2 Ministry of labour and Employment, Govt. of India,Final Report of Task Force

on Domestic Workers, September 12, 2011, page. 44 as cited in Domestic
Workers: How to Give Them Their Due, Centre for Civil Society Working Paper No.
278, available at http://ccs.in/internship_papers/2012/278_domesticworkers_pankhuri-tandon.pdf, accessed on October 31, 2015 at 6 p.m.
2

unorganised sector and excluding agricultural working force, i.e. around 133 million workers
or 83% of that belongs to informal economy/unorganised sector.3
Despite such significant presence, legal and policy regulations to ensure the
protection of workers employed in this sector are non-existent. In India, the principle of
Place of work is used for defining domestic-work. Generally it is understood as work done
inside the household for a private employer. These household tasks may comprise of cooking,
housekeeping, cleaning, washing and extensions of these outside the home such as
marketing .The definition does not talk about the tasks done for private household as drivers,
gardeners, gatekeepers, etc. and therefore does not include men working for private
employees.4
The general problems faced by domestic workers include lack of decent wages
and work conditions; no uniformity in receiving monetary and non-monetary benefits like
holidays etc.; violence, abuse and sexual harassment at workplace; exploitation by placement
agencies; non-accessibility to social security benefits, like health insurance, maternity
protection and old-age security.
Task force report of Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India
defines Domestic Worker as a person who is employed for remuneration whether in cash or
kind, in any household through any agency or directly, either on temporary or permanent, part
time or full time basis to do a household work, but does not include any member of the
family of an employer.5 The report has also classified different types of domestic works into
three categories i.e., part-time, full-time and live-in workers. In this juncture it has to be
considered that even Government of India took do many years only to recognise household
and domestic workers under the category of recognised workers in India. But this mere
recognition could not help much, there is a vital requirement for a codified statute for the
protection of domestic workers, in specific.
3 Planning Commission, Government of India, 2006, Report on the working Group on
Labour Laws and other Labour Regulations, available at
http://planningcommission.nic.in/aboutus/committee/wrkgrp11/wg11_rplabr.pdf,
accessed on October 30, 2015 at 6 p.m.

4 United Nations Development Programme, New Delhi, Synthesis of Important

Discussions on Livelihood and Microfinance Issue of Domestic Workers (2012),
available at http://www.in.undp.org/content/dam/india/docs/poverty/synthesis-ofimportant-discussions-on-livelihood-and-mf-issues-r.pdf, accessed November 1,
2015 at 10 a.m.
3

Migration continues to be an important aspect to domestic work. While it is

impossible to use national data to analyse the share of migrant workers within the sector,
micro studies estimate the proportion to be very high in metropolitan areas such as Delhi. 6
According to Zachariah and Rajan, Kerala the state that sends the largest number of workers
from India. A recent survey shows that over fourteen percent of emigrants from Kerala are
women but only about half of them as workers. However, with a sample only from
Thiruvantahpuram, Nair in 1999 found that out of six returnee migrants were women and that
most of them were engaged in menial tasks. Interviews of fifty unskilled women who have
returned from or desire to go to an Arab country to work gives us an understanding of the
difficulty they encounter.7
Indian domestic workers are part of informal sector that belongs to care-economy
In India, domestic work is not a recognised field as far as application of labour laws is
concerned. It is understood and underestimated just as social or personal activity which have
been neglected by policy makers at the time when they draft any provision, law or
regulations. Ultimately it results in massive exploitation of domestic work. Generally in India
most of the domestic workers belong from marginalised section of the society. They are paid
very less for their services. They do not have any organisation or unions of their own that can
help them to unite and fight for their rights, most of the domestic workers who come from
distant places as migrants, in search for a job, often face real difficulty while bargaining for
their wages.
5 Indian Development Gateway 2011, Final Report of Task Force on Domestic
Workers Realising Decent Work, Ministry of Labour and Employment, available
at http://www.indg.in/social-sector/unorganisedlabour/national_policy_on_domestic _work_2011.pdf, as cited in Naveen K. Jain,
Domestic Workers - Laws and Legal Provisions in India: Strengthening Womens
Economic Security and Rights, electronic copy available at:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2537940, accessed on November e, 2015 at 8 p.m.
6 Sharayana Bhattacharya and Shalini Sinha, Domestic Workers in India:
Background and Issues (Paper submitted to ILO), 2009, p. 7, available at
http://182.71.188.10:8080/jspui/bitstream/123456789/496/1/Domestic
%20Workers%20in%20India.pdf, accessed on October 30, 2015 at 4 p.m.
7 International Labour Office, Indispensable yet unprotected: Working conditions of Indian
Domestic workers at Home and Abroad, 2015, available at http://www.solutionexchangeun-gen-gym.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/COMPRESSED-indispensible-yetunprotected-min.pdf, accessed on November 5, 2015 at 11 a.m.

3. LAWS AND POLICIES GOVERNING WELFARE OF DOMESTIC WORKERS

IN INDIA
It has been already maintained that as such there are no proper laws which can
govern and regulate this separate class of working force. Most domestic workers are selfemployed by agencies an there is no mechanism to regulate their work. All the debates and
discussions on providing just and humane environment to domestic workers in India has
gone to all in vain.8 Task-force reports and various recommendations have been submitted by
the labour-Ministry and National Commission of Women to the government. Also after the
formation of UPA-led Congress Government of India, National Advisory Council was
established so to assist government in policy making and NAC also have drafted some
suggestive regulation for enforcement. In 2010, the National Commission for Women (NCW)
had drafted the Domestic Workers Welfare and Social Security Act, 2010 Bill highlighting
the exploitative nature of domestic work by spurious placement agencies. The Domestic
Workers (Conditions of Service) Bills of 1959, 1972 and 1977 and the House Workers
(Conditions of Service) Bill, 1989 could not see the light of the day. All the draft bills are still
pending in Parliament.

3.1.

STATUTORY FRAMEWORK REGULATING DOMESTIC WORKERS IN

INDIA
The domestic workers are generally excluded from the purview of the Minimum

Wages Act, 1948. The Central Government has fixed minimum wages for 45 occupations and
domestic work is excluded. However the central and regional governments are allowed to
make rules and fix minimum wages for other occupations and few states have set the
minimum wage rates for domestic works. In accordance with the Child Labour (Prohibition
and Regulation) Act, 1986 prohibits the employment of children below 14 years age in
certain occupations. The Inter State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and
Conditions of Service) Act 1979 provides scope for protection of individuals who migrate to
cities to work as domestic workers. Domestic Workers (Registration, Social Security and
Welfare) Act, 2008 regulates payment and working conditions and check exploitation and
8 Ibid., p. 9
5

trafficking of women and other young household workers. However, the Act does not apply
to such domestic workers who have immigrated for employment to any other country.
Ministry of Labour and Employment has launched Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojna (RSBY)
to provide health insurance coverage for Below Poverty Line (BPL) families and also to
domestic workers.

3.2.

THE DOMESTIC WORKERS WELFARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY ACT,

2010 BILL
The Domestic Workers Welfare and Social Security Act, 2010 Bill is a proposed

comprehensive enactment specifically designed to meet the working condition of the

domestic workers including registration. It was drafted in 2010 by National Commission for
Women. The emphasis in the draft Bill, among many other things, is on the regulation of
placement agencies. It also observed that in the absence of a Central Act, many initiatives of
State governments to get domestic workers under the minimum wage notification were not
getting realised.
The legislation provides for a Central Advisory Committee and State Advisory
Committees and for district boards, whose main responsibility will be to carry out the
registration of domestic workers, employers and service providers. The boards are to be
empowered to grant relief in case of accidents, and provide financial assistance for the
education of children, medical assistance for the treatment of the beneficiary and maternity
benefits. They can arbitrate disputes through conciliation. The boards are also meant to
implement schemes or any welfare measures framed by the Central board in consultation
with State boards. The proposed legislation puts the onus of registration of the domestic
worker on the employer, especially in cases where the worker is employed through an agency
or employed full time.9
It also stipulates the setting up of a Domestic Workers Welfare Fund, to be
administered by the district boards, and has many progressive and positive features listed
9 Vague Promise, Frontline, Volume 28, Issue 15, July16, 2011, available at
http://www.frontline.in/static/html/fl2815/stories/20110729281509700.htm, accessed on
November 6, 2015 at 7 p.m.

under working conditions for domestic workers, including a maximum of eight hours' work,
food, sufficient periods of rest, and a weekly day off for full-time workers. Overtime rates
have also been laid down. There is a section on offences and penalties as well. This
comprehensive proposal is lying in cold storage even as a piece-meal benefit resembling
health insurance has been doled out to domestic workers.

3.3.

NATIONAL POLICY FOR DOMESTIC WORKERS, 2011

A task force of Ministry of Labour and Employment framed a draft National Policy

for domestic workers in 2011 and it is a major step towards formulating an umbrella law for
domestic workers. The National Policy has recognised the importance and the problems of
the market for domestic worker. It has also emphasised the need for inclusion rather than
exclusion of domestic workers in the existing legislations as well as supplementing these
with legislations specific domestic workers.10
The National Policy proposes giving right to domestic workers to register them as
workers with the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India. Regarding
themselves as workers will give them access to rights and benefits that are given to any other
worker and also it will give them the right to seek legal remedy in case of dispute with their
employer. The policy gives domestic workers the right to form or join any Trade Unions or
other organisations. It also gives domestic workers right to decent working conditions by
enacting minimum wage laws, establishing number of hours, rest periods, etc. Moreover it
talks about providing social protection and social security benefits like health and maternity
benefits, death and disability benefits, etc.
Importantly, the policy intends to protect the domestic workers who are seeking
work abroad. The policy proposes that the Ministry of Labour and Employment in
collaboration with Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs set up a suitable legislative
mechanism so that terms of contract are made clear to the employee before he goes abroad.
The Central Government will be required to establish a mechanism for regulation of
10 Domestic Workers: How to Give Them Their Due, Centre for Civil Society
Working Paper No. 278,p. 9, available at
http://ccs.in/internship_papers/2012/278_domestic-workers_pankhuri-tandon.pdf,
accessed on October 31, 2015 at 6 p.m.
7

placement agencies of domestic workers. Till such a mechanism is formulated, all the
placement agencies must be registered under the Shops and Establishments Act, 1953. The
Placement agencies also need to maintain all the records regarding domestic workers and
their employers which will be sent to State Labour Departments.

3.4.

JUDICIAL RESPONSE:
In National Domestic Workers Welfare Trust vs Union of India, 11 the petition filed

by the petitioner, the National Domestic Workers Welfare Trust (NDWWT), aims not only at
protecting rights of Domestic Workers but also all children forced to work in this field. The
aim is to give domestic workers the same status as regular workers and consolidate existing
laws in their favour. The petitioner, campaigns for the recognition of the rights of Domestic
Workers and has played an instrumental role in drafting the Domestic workers Conditions of
Service Bill' of 1996. Such a bill will offer Domestic Workers legal protection against
exploitation.
The petition addressed these issues and seeks directions for a minimum level of
protection to domestic workers as guaranteed under the Constitution of India, which would
include: a) Comprehensive legislation to protect the rights of domestic workers is enacted; b)
Minimum wage for domestic workers; c) Schemes for benefits of domestic workers such as
payment of wages, weekly holidays and medical assistance; d) Safety of women and children
employed as domestic workers.
The petition sought orders directing the respondents to enact comprehensive
legislation to protect the rights of Domestic Workers. In response to this petition, the Central
Government has submitted that the Unorganised Sector Workers Bill, 2004 will include
provisions for the safety, social security, health and welfare of Unorganised Sector Workers
including domestic workers. Previous to the petition the Domestic Workers were not included
in the schedule of employment in the Unorganised Sector Workers Bill, 2004.

11 Writ Petition (Civil) No(s). 160 of 2003

8

4. APPRAISAL OF THE EXISTING LEGAL FRAMEWORK REGULATING

DOMESTIC WORKERS IN INDIA:
As far as welfare of domestic workers are concerned, all the draft Bills look good
on paper, but inspire little hope of making a difference in the real world in the absence of
mechanisms for inspection and enforcement. Time and again trial courts have also urged the
government to make a law to deal with the issues of domestic workers that will not only
protect the workers but also safeguard the employers from getting conned 12. Many a time
cases are not officially reported, due to the domestic workers confinement in private homes.
Practically, law enforcement agencies cannot curb exploitation without a proper law.
Domestic work is not considered as a real work. It is just an extension of household services
which are not even accounted in GDP. The Indian law is clearly not ready to consider the
home seriously as a workplace worth regulation or monitoring. 13 So long as there is a mindset that the home is a private sector even when it is a workplace and domestic work is just
housework and not proper work, the apathy of the state towards the plight of domestic
workers will continue. At the same time, workplace is considered to be a private place, it is
not always accessible to legal scrutiny. Any designated authority will not be able to move in a
private residence of the working condition without the consent of the owner.
The National Policy has proposed that Resident Welfare Associations (RWA)
should be involved in helping the domestic workers regarding the benefits and privileges
provided to them by the government and also involve the domestic workers in skill building
activities. However, the members of RWA who are the employers of domestic workers will
reluctant to promote the skill building activities since that will provide upward mobility to
domestic workers. It will encourage domestic workers to quit domestic work and shift to
better jobs requiring more skill. Consequentially bargaining power of existing domestic
workers will be increased and that will not be favourable to the interest of employers.it will
be very difficult to make skill building centres and grievance redressal centres accessible to

12 Ground realities for domestic workers, January 13, 2012, available at

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/ground-realitiesfor-domestic-workers/article2797533.ece, accessed on October 31, 2015 at 5
p.m.
13 Who will help Indias domestic helps, October 31, 2013, available at
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/Bj0ZhynE5rIO3zF3KntzkL/Who-will-help-Indiasdomestic-helps.html, accessed on November 2, 2015 at 3 p.m.
9

each and every domestic worker, as suggested in the National Policy14. Moreover, monitoring
of placement agencies is an issue to be addressed. Domestic workers coming through
placement agencies are not brought to the cities by a single agent. There are multiple agents
who have a well organised network for migration and handling of these domestic workers.
However, on June 16, 2011, Domestic Workers Convention adopted at the 100 th
International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conference. It can be considered as a major step
towards recognition of domestic workers rights because the Convention sought to bring in an
estimated 53 to 100 million workers worldwide under the realm of labour standards. 15 The
Convention recognises the significant contribution of domestic workers to the global
economy and says this work is undervalued and invisible, and mainly carried out by
women and girls, many of whom are migrants or members of disadvantaged communities.

5. CONCLUSION
The entire discourse brings to the conclusion that with the growing significance
of domestic work within the urban labour market, there is concomitant minimum legal
protection and social security for workers generating important household and care services.
As already discussed, domestic work is not recognised as work by the Indian government.
Trade unions and other organisations working with domestic workers have been pressurising
for a shift in its policy on domestic work. Domestic workers are not included in most of the
legislations and it reflect the lack of interest to engage with the complexities of domestic
work. Reconceptualising the legal framework so as to enable effective implementation is
vital. This will require national labour laws to extend recognition to domestic work as work
through the inclusion of the sector within the ambit of minimum wage and dispute settlement
laws.

14 Domestic Workers: How to Give Them Their Due, Centre for Civil Society
Working Paper No. 278, p. 11, available at
http://ccs.in/internship_papers/2012/278_domestic-workers_pankhuri-tandon.pdf,
accessed on October 30, 2015 at 2 p.m.
15 Ground realities for domestic workers, January 13, 2012, available at
http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-newdelhi/ground-realitiesfor-domestic-workers/article2797533.ece, accessed on October 29, 2015 at 10
a.m.
10

At the same time equally critical is the issue of responsibility of the employer in
recognising the importance of the domestic worker in their lives, give due recognition to their
works and treat them with respect and dignity. Organisations and the government will have to
involve employers in the discussion to make them aware of the rights of domestic workers.
Professionalising the occupation of domestic work or housekeeping service will solve the
problems posed by the informal sector for both employers and employees of this work. 16 So
long as there is a mindset that the home is a private space even when it is a workplace and
domestic work is just house work and not proper work, the apathy of the state towards the
plight of domestic workers will continue. Although few State Legislatures have passed a
separate statute for domestic workers and some states have recognised domestic workers in
their minimum wages laws, there is an immediate need of an effective central statute that can
fix the regulation and welfare of domestic work in all parts of India.

16 Naveen K. Jain, Domestic Workers - Laws and Legal Provisions in India: Strengthening
Womens Economic Security and Rights, electronic copy available at:
http://ssrn.com/abstract=2537940, accessed on November 3, 2015 at 4 p.m.

11