Ratify convention recognising domestic workers, union urges Centre

The Domestic Workers Rights Union (DWRU), Bengaluru, has urged the Indian government to urgently ratify the International Labour Organisation's convention number 189 before International Domestic Workers Day on June 16.

The ILO had adopted its convention number 189 on the day in 2011, the first time the rights of domestic workers were recognised at such a forum.

India is not among the 36 countries that ratified the convention.

DWRU Joint Secretary Geetha Menon stressed on the ‘Decent Work for Domestic Workers’. She also highlighted the interplay of caste, class an gender that impacts the existing system that exploits the migrants who work as domestic help.

“This group of the population comprises largely women and young girls, many of whom are from disadvantaged groups, so there is a cycle of vulnerability and exploitation at play here that benefits those with power,” she said.

Dubbing the lack of consideration by the government and society “atrocious”, she emphasised the importance of shifting the existing feudalistic mindset to one that respects and recognises domestic workers as those that contribute to the productive economy.

“We do not understand why the Indian government has not ratified this convention. Perhaps, this imagination does not strike them (legislators) that the household is also a place of work for many people,” she said.

Despite protests, memorandums, and multiple calls for action by domestic workers’ rights groups in the past, the Indian government has neither formalised domestic work nor identified it as decent work, Geetha added.

The DWRU demands that the Indian government adopts and implements the convention to recognise the rights and contributions of domestic workers as participants in decent work.