“We live with the fear that, if we take a day off, another person replaces us. There are other domestic workers who are willing to collect less. Even when we are sick, our bosses ask us to go to work and to rest later,” says Sainteta M., a 30 -year domestic employee, who lives in the city of Bangalore, in the southern state of Karnataka,.
Cangeeta is one of the millions of people who make up the domestic labor of India and for whom labor insecurity, vulnerability to, and, low wages and poor working conditions are a daily reality.
The fight for their rights has been an odyssey of years with few results. To date, for example there are not even exact or updated data of how many people are used in this sector. The Government estimated that there was and the International Labor Organization (ILO) spoke of between 20 and 80 million. He has registered approximately 28.9 million domestic and home employees. The government made, in 2024, one, but the results have not yet been published.
In January of this year, to the Government that instituted an interministerial committee (with the Ministries of Labor, Social Justice, Development of Women and Child and Law and Justice) to examine the possibility of enacting a centralized law that. The court gave the commission a period of six months to submit a report. The deadline has been fulfilled and there is no news of the commission or the report.
Geeta Menon, co -founder of the Stree Jagruti Samiti organization, has been working for several decades for the rights of Indian domestic workers. He says that the court recognized the relationship between domestic employees and that this was the reason to issue the order to create legal protections. In, the Court expressed concern about “the lack of regulation of this fundamental labor sector” and pointed out that “the legal vacuum that exists in the field of rights and protection of domestic workers” is the cause “of harassment and generalized abuses” suffered by this sector. He also added that “in many cases they support low wages, insecure environments and prolonged working hours without real possibility of resorting.” The NGO studies ways that members of the domestic workers’ rights union are part of the committee that must be created by judicial mandate.
Since 1959 there have been attempts to promulgate laws designed exclusively for the well -being of domestic workers – one of the most recent attempts was that of 2017 – but none has materialized. Although these employees are included in the and although some states have approved measures to improve their well -being, minimal guarantees are still missing. Although in some regions it has been ordered to include them in the scope of the minimum wage law of 1948, the calculation of wages has not been done scientifically, says Menon. “It does not correspond to the complexity and the defined tasks. For each explicit task, they can carry out five more that are not counted. What we propose is that there is a criterion for everyone to pay the same. And it should be mandatory,” he says.
On the other hand, although the Government said it guaranteed “decent working conditions, wages, protection, claim mechanisms and other social security benefits for all categories of workers, including domestic workers,”.
A law tailored to a complex trade
One of the peculiarities that the law should contemplate, according to the sources consulted, is to correctly define and regulate the workplace. For the employer, the home is his private space, while, for the domestic employee, it is his workplace. The officials of the Ministry of Labor are reluctant to enforce the standards and to carry out inspections in a private home, Menon explains.
This complexity is what prevents real repairs even in cases of sexual harassment of domestic workers, although they are protected by the Law of Prevention, Prohibition and repair of sexual harassment against women in the workplace (POSH) of 2013. The communities of owners of housing buildings act quickly if the aggressor is a person outside the building, as an electrician, for example; But they are reluctant when he is a resident of the building, says Menon.
Another central problem is that domestic work, including care, is undervalued. “All works have a name. Ours has no identity. People despises domestic work. They should be recognized,” says Sainteta, who is also one of the leaders of the domestic workers’ rights union.
Other claims are that they grant us the loss due to illness, one day free per week and teaching scholarships for children
Summitra Paswan, domestic employee and responsible for a group of workers
Among other claims, the union demands a working group with a specific telephone number, a well -being council with the participation of domestic employees and unions, a repair mechanism, a benefit plan, the legal regulation of placement agencies and accident insurance.
They are the same concerns that are heard in the city of Guwahati, in the eastern state of Assam. “We are aging. We cannot continue working forever,” says Summitra Paswan, 56, and has been in Uzanbazar, Guwahati for three decades. Paswan is a local responsible for Grihokarmi Adhikar Suraksha Samiti (Gass), a group of Assam domestic workers. “We have asked the government for a long time to create some type of pension plan for domestic workers. Other claims are to grant us the illness, one day free a week and teaching scholarships for the children of domestic employees,” he says.
Paswan underlines the need for workers organizing. “I try to understand by other women. This is our work and is an issue that affects our well -being,” he explains. Gass played a fundamental role, together with the youth organization for unity and voluntary action, in the elaboration of a that addressed the repair mechanisms, conflict resolution and sanctions for infractions, as well as the creation of a well -being fund. The project retired in March 2023 after legislators expressed their confidence that the government would take into account the suggestions.
Steps towards legal protection
The feudal mentality has prevented progress in the conquest of rights. Domestic work evolved from a servitude system
Geeta Menon, member of the Stree Jagruti Samiti organization
A first step to achieve a centralized law would be for India to ratify the signed in 2011, a lawsuit filed by the Bangalore domestic workers’ union during the commemoration of the International Day of Domestic Workers, on June 16, 2025. The agreement forces member countries to guarantee domestic employees fair and decent working conditions.
The Organization of Menon and others have jointly submitted a demand for public interest before the Supreme Court with two main demands: that the minimum wage law enters into force in the states where it is not yet and that the role and responsibility of the welfare associations of the residents are increased.
Another obstacle is the awareness of the domestic employees themselves about their work. The circumstances in which they work – a family with several members – make the employee difficult to refuse or negotiate, unlike the workers of a textile factory, who can ask that overtime be paid when they are asked to do tasks that do not correspond to them, Menon explains. “The employee herself does not consider it a productive work, because she has the feeling that she is the same thing at home,” he adds. Domestic workers do not want to complain about the minimum wage because they know that, if they do, they will replace them. Therefore, unions and organizations that work in this sector have to strive to convince them of the value of their work and the need to defend their rights.
According to the idea extended in Indian society that “women are conditioned to take care of care” and domestic work is “unknown labor”, together with the role of castes (hereditary social classes), it contributes to the domestic labor is poorly paid and undervalued. “The feudal mentality has prevented progress in the conquest of rights. Domestic work evolved from a servitude system. Although the salary economy developed and transformed the situation into a relationship between employer and employee, the mentality has not changed. The domestic worker is still considered a servant,” says Menon.
