Explained | Are domestic workers legally protected in India? 

How many domestic workers does India have? Are there any laws that protect them from violence and harm?

Story so far: Earlier this month, social workers rescued a 14-year-old girl from a Gurugram home where she was employed as a domestic worker. The couple allegedly harassed, assaulted and tortured the girl, originally from Jharkhand, for the five months she was employed. “A preliminary probe has found that the couple allegedly accused the minor of stealing food and not working properly and would beat her up as a result. They allegedly deprived her of food and gave her leftovers to eat. A medical examination has been conducted and further legal action will be taken accordingly,” a police officer told the media. She has sustained several injuries, including cut and burn injuries reportedly inflicted with a blade or hot tongs. 

Police filed an FIR against the pair under sections of the Indian Penal Code, the Juvenile Justice Act and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO). The Jharkhand government subsequently sent a team from its anti-trafficking unit to probe the incident and promised rehabilitation to the girl througheducation and welfare measures. The incident has highlighted the quality of paid domestic work in urban India, where people risk abuse and exploitation in an unregulated sector. 

How many people are employed as domestic workers? 

Domestic work is the fastest-growing sector of women and girls’ employment in urban India. Official estimates show that as of 2012 39 lakh people were employed as domestic workers, of which at least 26 lakh were women. But the real figures are obscured due to lack of centralised data and the informal nature of domestic work—in 2010,then Minister of State for Labour and Employment Harish Rawat averred that there was no authentic data available. Independent estimates such as one by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) place the count anywhere between 20 million and 90 million workers.

Most people come from marginalised castes and underprivileged locations. A Bengaluru-based study in 2016 found 75% of domestic workers were from Scheduled Castes, 15% from OBCs and 8% from Scheduled Tribes. NGO Anti-Slavery International further notes most of these workers are poor, unskilled, landless and without formal education. 

A large number of girls and women (mostly unmarried) migrate from States like Jharkhand, Bihar, Bengal and Orissa – regions with a sizeable population living below the poverty line. Extreme poverty forces minors, mostly young girls, to drop out of school. Jharkhand, for instance, has the highest school dropout rate in India. Non-availability of jobs and low literacy rates among rural and tribal communities positions domestic work as the only source of income. More than 12.6 million domestic workers in the country are minors, with 86% of them being girls. Moreover, 25% of underage domestic workers were below 14 years, according to the data available. 

A 2012 study found that, globally, of the total increase in the number of female workers in the labour force, 14.4% contributed to the domestic workforce.