Features: Magazine | Literary Review | Life | Metro Plus | Open Page | Education Plus | Book Review | Business | SciTech | Friday Review | Cinema Plus | Young World | Property Plus | Quest | Folio |

Society

As opposed to her SHG counterpart, the domestic worker definitely earns more but the concept of the SHG is centred on empowerment while household work is hardly considered ‘dignified’, let alone empowering.

Photo: N. Sridharan

Not getting her dues: No laws for the informal sector.

Talking animatedly in their fisher folk dialect, 12 women sit in the waiting room of a reputed employment centre awaiting their next assignment. Suddenly there’s a hush as the Director walks into the hall. “A family needs someone for maternity and infant care,” she says, “who is willing to go?”

What started off in the 1990s as rehabilitation schemes for the widowed, the abused and destitute women have, over the last decade, turned into one of the most commercial enterprises in Kerala.

Approximately 1,200 such agencies have been set up in the State with around 942 of them still functional as of November 2007, according to the All Kerala Placement and Home Nursing Services Associations, Thiruvananthapuram. The term “home nursing” is rather loosely used here. The organisation actually means domestic work and maternity/infant care too. In fact, their records show that approximately 1,13,000 women are employed in homes throughout Kerala through these agencies alone. Earning anything between Rs 3,000 and Rs. 3,500 a month or a whopping initial salary of Rs. 5.000 if employed outside the State, these women seem to have it all. A job that does not require them to stay in a household for more than 30 days, that protects them from baseless accusations and ill-treating customers through signed agreements, and jobs that are professionally specific (meaning an employee hired for infant care should do just that) and most of all, available everyday of the year.

So does the State see a promising future in this private sector? Apparently, no. The number of these women employees have reduced drastically the last three years. “We must have trained at least 1,000 women by now in home nursing and maternity/ infant care but most of our employees have left,” says Sister Philomy, president of the Dharmagiri Vikas Society at Kothamangalam. “Some were rumoured to have joined other agencies but later we heard that many have quit altogether.”

Says Pushpy Johny, Director of Sewa, Kochi, “Our centre was set up initially to eradicate the acute poverty in the district’s coastal areas by giving the women there a means of permanent employment.” Even today, 17 years after it was set up, 80 per cent of the Sewa employees in Kochi are from that community of fisher folk. And that could probably be why there is no shortage of employees there yet.

Although most plantations have become functional again, the Anaswara agency in Pala still gets its few but steady fresh admissions from the Idukki District. “I think these women approach us for a job only because they have to single-handedly support their families,” says Chandrika, secretary. Even then, six months of continuous employment in homes through an agency to evade that debt trap and, they are never back again. In fact, some owners of private agencies have started to include drivers and security personnel in their list of services. Like the Prompt Manpower Consultancy, Kottayam, whose Shone Thomas suspects that the concept of the household employee will not exist for long.

Because even if the money is good and the demand ever increasing, a job that requires one to live in a stranger’s household is still considered the last option for any married woman. “Our society still perceives the paid domestic employee as a slave who has nothing to lose”, says K.C. John, Director of Ma’m Care, Muvattupuzha. “The success of SHGs has increased the stigma because the woman who still opts for domestic work is looked down upon in her own neighbourhood.” As opposed to her SHG counterpart, the domestic worker definitely earns more but the concept of the Self Help Group is centred on empowerment while household work is hardly considered ‘dignified’, let alone empowering.

While agencies do complain that most employees “do not stick on”, what they do seem to forget is that for a woman in this category of employment, her “office” should be a sanctuary as well. Pushpy has had her employees asking for the keys to the office so that they can escape the wrath of their husbands for a night. But not every agency can be a “second home”. A large number may not even be legitimate.

Wherein seems to lie the problem. “This scheme of employment does not have legal representation yet,” says A. Chandrababu, general secretary to AKPHNSA. It cannot be brought under the Labour Act because the Act has specifications on working hours (a household employee works for 6 to 16 hours), exemption on public holidays and so on. No Government-backed controlling authority exists to check the activities of every agency. Rumours of immoral trafficking have been proved true through police raids. In the last three years, around 273 agencies in the State were shut down, thanks to joint action taken by the police and the AKPHNSA (the only such organisation in its type).

Before employing a woman, the owner of a private agency should get a copy of her ration card or election identity card, a copy of her 10th grade certificate, three telephone numbers from her neighbourhood and a recommendation letter from her local Panchayat member. Not every centre follows these rules, only the 512 private agencies registered with the AKPHNSA.

“It is no wonder that everyone looks at the agency employee with suspicion,” says Chandrababu. Like the Maharashtra Government, the State must establish a licensing authority that will enforce registration of agencies and create a code of conduct for the employees at the very least, he says. One proposal is to include all Home Nursing agencies under the purview of the Health Department. Another is to authorise the State Women’s Commission to collectively organise this sector — training them periodically, instilling in them a sense of accountability and teaching them to recognise signs of discrimination.

So where does all this leave the woman who take up the “last job on earth”?

Cut to the SEWA office of today. The family that came looking for an employee for maternity/infant care is told that someone’s willing to go with them. Transactions get completed, addresses are exchanged and a 40-something, frail-looking woman is ready to leave with her new customers. But wait — doesn’t she have any questions? Will she be given a bed or a mattress? What will be her sleeping hours? Can she make a phone call once? What procedure have they been instructed to take if something goes missing and they suspect her? But then again, that family can always get another pair of hired hands. But if she doesn’t go, she is another step away from survival.

Fifty-six year old Valsamma Jerome from Kattoor, Alleppey, has been the longest-working employee in Sewa, Kochi. She has worked for people who made her sleep on the bare floor and given her stale food in separate utensils but she hopes to continue as long as her health allows. Because if it wasn’t for Sewa, “my family and I would have been homeless long back.”

Fifty-seven-year-old Marykutty from Alleppey has worked in around 50 houses as a maternity/ infant care worker and the reason why she still works is because her centre, attached to a missionary hospital, treats her freely for osteoporosis. All her earnings go to her creditor who has the title deed of her house.

Fifty-six-year-old Baby Cleetus from Fort Cochin thought she could stop working once she made enough to pay off the debts incurred by her daughter’s wedding. Then her daughter got pregnant. “What other job can a woman like me get all the time?”, she asks. But Baby prefers to stick with an agency because “even if I work for only a day, I know I will be paid.”

Printer friendly page  
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail