11-year-old Aduri, a domestic worker, was rescued in 2013 by a police inspector from a dustbin in the cantonment area in a half-conscious state with signs of torture and severe injuries throughout her body. Earlier this year a 12-year-old domestic worker named Purnima was set on fire by her employer in the city of Rangpur and was then left abandoned at a warehouse to die. Violence against domestic workers go unabated. Aduri and Purnima are not the only victims of this inhumane practice. Hundreds of thousands of Aduris and Purnimas face this unbearable torment every day in Bangladesh in exchange for a meager salary and little food on their plate.
According to a baseline survey conducted by the ILO back in 2006, there were approximately 2 million domestic workers in Bangladesh of which 12.7% ie 4, 21,426 were children. The survey also revealed that 78% of the child domestic workers were female. 10 years after this survey the number of domestic workers is now estimated to be over 4 million. Despite the huge number of people employed in this sector, there is no specific law on the rights of domestic workers.
Made to work in such a legal and policy vacuum, the domestic workers are subjected to inhumane torture and have no social safety net whatsoever. In a 2010 study conducted by the Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum, 95% of the child domestic workers interviewed in Dhaka city reported to being abused by their owners. A staggering 73% of the children reported to being physically abused whereas 17% reported to being sexually abused. This study vividly reveals the dangerous condition that the child domestic workers are exposed to.
It is unbelievable that Bangladesh is yet to enact a law that is exclusively dedicated to addressing the needs of the domestic workers and protect their rights. The only law that remotely relates to the domestic workers is the Domestic Servants’ Registration Ordinance, 1961 which obliges the domestic workers to register with the police, applicable only for five police stations of the metropolitan area of Dhaka. This Ordinance was enacted for serving the employers’ interests – and not that of the domestic workers – to simplify the process of tracking down the workers in case they ran off after committing any offence.
The Bangladesh Labor Act, 2006 which provides measures for almost all the labor law related issues, clearly excludes domestic workers from its scope by Section 1(4) (NA). The rationale is that this statute deals with workers in formal sectors only and that ‘domestic works’ as per our legal system falls under the informal sector of employment.
Despite the absence of substantive laws, there are still ways in which the current prevailing laws can be utilized for ensuring the rights of the domestic workers. For example, an agreement is made between the employer and worker before starting the work in matters generally relating to salary, vacations etc. The contract formed even if unwritten, informal and exhaustive is a service contract and is enforceable under the Contract Act, 1872 provided that all the terms and conditions of the contract are as per the law. But this law will be of no help to the minors who constitute a vast portion of the domestic worker’s community. Section 11 of the Contract Act, 1872 clearly states that a person is competent to contract only after attaining the age of majority; thus, rendering a minor’s agreement void and completely ineffective.
Another way to enforce domestic workers’ rights is by the application of the Penal Code, 1860. Many of the provisions of criminal law apply equally to the domestic workers like any other citizen of the country. A domestic worker can thus prosecute a perpetrator for acts like wrongful confinement, grievous injury, assault, culpable homicide, murder, various forms of sexual offences etc.
Women and Children Repression Prevention (Amendment) Act,2003 can be used to strengthen the position of domestic workers by punishing the perpetrators and preventing the domestic workers from harm. Moreover, the legal framework provided in National Child Labor Elimination Policy 2010 would be helpful in shielding the child domestic workers from the harshness of the working environment. It is also crucial in paving the way for eradicating child labor in the country.
The Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (ILO Convention No. 189) is the first global treaty that adopts international labor standards for domestic workers. The convention affirms their fundamental rights. It guarantees them the same basic rights as those available to other groups of workers such as right to safe and healthy working environment, fair terms of employment, rules of remuneration, minimum wage coverage, paid annual leave, social security protection including maternity benefits etc. Unfortunately, Bangladesh is yet to ratify this convention.
The existing laws are of little help to the workers. They are mostly unaware of their rights. Even if they are aware, they are too vulnerable to confront their wealthy and powerful employers in court. Moreover, the prosecution cost and the lawyer’s fees are too expensive for them to bear.
With the aim of saving the workers from this plight, a group of national trade unions and leading human rights NGOs in Bangladesh came together in 2006 and founded the Domestic Workers Rights Network (DWRN). Initially, the Domestic Workers Code of Conduct was developed in 2007, which later evolved into the Draft Domestic Workers Protection and Welfare Policy 2010, the first ever policy for domestic workers in Bangladesh. The continued effort of DWRN finally resulted in the approval of the draft on December 21, 2015 by the Bangladesh cabinet.
The primary objective of the policy is to protect the rights of the domestic workers. It introduces a contract of employment between the employer and the domestic worker detailing all the necessary particulars such as the type of work, compulsory duties, salary, leave etc. It provides for a compulsory paid maternity leave of 16 weeks which, if implemented, will be a revolutionary step in guaranteeing the rights of the domestic workers. The policy also includes establishing a 24-hour-help-line and monitoring cells at the central and local levels. There are, however, some contradicting provisions in this policy. It legalizes child labor in domestic sectors for children aged 12 and above. It places the responsibility of educating the child workers on the employers when ensuring primary education of every child is the duty of the state.
Despite some inconsistencies in the Draft Domestic Workers Protection and Welfare Policy, 2010, it is the first step in recognizing the rights of domestic workers. The next step after the introduction of a policy is to enact a legislation which will make the policy legally enforceable. It has already been six years since the policy was first drafted. The government must speed up the process of enacting the legislation, as it is already too late by all standards. However, the introduction of a new law will not make the problem magically disappear overnight. A change in people’s mindset is a must. A change that will enable people to treat the domestic workers as human beings and as equals instead of as mere slaves. This virtue of empathy can be instilled in the minds of children from a tender age through textbooks whereas mass media campaigns will go a long way in making people understand the gravity of the situation. Thus in order to combat this problem, people of the community will have to work together to build an inclusive environment for the domestic workers and eliminate this long-standing evil.
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