Context:

Job loss for domestic workers.

Data:

- Over 50 million people are employed as domestic helps across the country, with women constituting over 75% of this sector.

Issues:

- Lack of social security

- No dedicated policies to deal with the issues of domestic help

- No large-scale survey to enumerate their strength in the society.

- Not covered under minimum wage: thus works under exploitative conditions.

- Mostly migrants from other state: has no political opinion.

- Welfare of the unorganised sector act is not implemented in letter and spirit.

- Since the sector is largely unorganised, these workers are at the mercy of their employers and suffer under abject poverty, little to no education and a competing demand for jobs which results in depressed wages.

- In the eyes of the law, domestic workers do not fall under the definition of “workmen,” nor is their workplace an “establishment.”

- The social understanding of housework as women’s work requiring no skill has been at the heart of underestimating the value of paid domestic work.

Way Forward:

- Needs to bring all domestic workers under social security law.

- Needs to make a comprehensive policy on protection of domestic workers.

- Needs to provide minimum wage protection at the national level. Currently, some state does cover them at state level.

- Needs to provide them immediate income support to tide over the Corona virus crisis.

Reference: https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/no-help-for-the-helps/article31996627.ece

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