The Plight of Female Domestic Workers in Urban Amritsar

Author: Ritu Arora

Abstract:
The National Commission on Labour (2002), while discussing the safety and protection measure for domestic workers, admitted the strong need to provide satisfactory conditions of work, genuine treatment from employers and social security benefits to domestic workers. These workers, majority of whom are females, usually belong to rural areas and as they lack any special skill, they prefer to do odd jobs at local households, with expectation of good treatment from the members of that respectable family. There are some employers, who treat them with humanity, but very often, they are treated badly. They are forced to work at nominal wages, for long hours, without adequate food and still their job has risk of uncertainity. Where these workers are working on full time basis, they are not provided with safe and clean place for doing rest. Moreover, as majority of these workers are females, they also face the risk of sexual harassment. Need of the hour is that Government and community should join hands together, to uplift their status. This is necessary in order to enable them to live with decent standard of living.

Keywords: domestic workers, employer, harassment, nominal wages, social security, uncertainity.

DOI:

International Journal of Trade & Commerce (Vol: 5 Issue:1)