The Hindu : National : The invisible labour

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 11, 2004

National

National

The invisible labour

By Kalpana Sharma

MUMBAI, JUNE 10. On the eve of the World Day Against Child Labour (June 12), the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has released a report on the worldwide problem of children working as domestic labour. "Helping hands or shackled lives?" looks at the conditions under which millions of children work as maids, cooks, cleaners, gardeners and general household help, at low or no pay and sometimes under inhuman conditions. In India alone, an estimated 20 per cent of all children below the age of 14 working outside their homes are employed as domestic workers.

The problem, according to Sister Jeanne Devos of the National Domestic Workers Movement (NDWM), is the invisibility of these workers. She told The Hindu that all estimates of the numbers of children employed as "servants" or domestic help are guesswork. She estimated that in Mumbai, there were at least 45,000 children below the age of 14 working in homes. Of these, over 90 per cent are girls. "The main problem we face," she said, "is their inaccessibility. Parents think their child is well looked after if he or she is working as a domestic. Employers think they are helping one child out of poverty. There is general acceptance amongst the public of this because of poverty. Yet these children are vulnerable, invisible and are denied their basic rights." The NDWM, which works in 12 States and has over one lakh members, has campaigned for domestic work to be recognised and regulated. Sister Jeanne said that many of the girls working in cities were from the tribal areas of Orissa and Jharkhand. Some of them had been brought to the city with false promises and then forced into domestic work. The majority, she said, were treated badly. But it was difficult to intervene or organise them because no one was willing to report these cases or to seek help. The youngest worker that the NDWM encountered began work at the age of two; she was nine when they met her and her older sister.

Cases of violence against such workers often appear in the news but the issue becomes invisible again.

Pratibha Menon, a lawyer working in the juvenile court in Mumbai on behalf of the India Centre for Human Rights and Law, said that she had come across cases where the children had hit back after being abused.

A recent case was that of a 10-year-old boy from Bihar who had been starved by his employers and was a victim of violence and abuse. One day, he poured silver mercury on the food of his employer.

Following her complaint to the police, he was arrested. The court allowed him to return to his home when he pleaded guilty. The boy had been working from the age of eight. The NDWM is pressing for ways to make the problem more visible.

"We have to make sure there is compulsory registration at birth and also in housing societies. Any child that is not legally adopted and is living in a society should be registered with it," Sister Jeanne said.

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