Domestic Workers in India, Slavery Index and Indian Position
INDEX
1. Domestic workers in India
(i) Problems
(ii) Solutions
(iii) How Solutions to be Enforced?
2. Modern Day Slavery & Slavery Index
3. Indian Position
(i) THIS IS DUE TO
(a) Chronic Bonded Labor System
(b) Women’ and Child Trafficking
(ii) BUT WHY ARE WE PERFORMING SO BADLY?
(iii) What needs to happen?
4. Sources
DOMESTIC WORKERS IN INDIA
The domestic worker is a person who is employed for remuneration in any household through any agency or directly, either on atemporary or permanent, part time or full time basis to do thehousehold work, but does not include any member of the family of anemployer.
TYPES
a) Part-time worker who works for one or more employers for a specified number of hours/day or performs specific tasks for each of the multiple employers every day. Ex-Bartanwali, jhaduvali aunties etc.
b) Full-time worker who works for a single employer every day for a specified number of hours(normal full day work) and who returns back to her/his home every day after work. Ex-fulltime ayah.
c) Live-in worker who works full time for a single employer and also stays on the premises of theemployer or in a dwelling provided by the employer (which is close or next to the house of the employer)and does not return back to her/his home every day after work.(They are most vulnerable)
PROBLEMS
• Several States have notified minimum wages for domestic work but have no norms for implementation or monitoring. Generally wages are self-regulated based on socio-economic profile of employers, tasks performed and combination of tasks.
• In terms of accommodation, there are several different arrangements- quarter, room and living in the house in the same space as the family. Accommodation can be a great support as well as a source of exploitation.
• The maximum number of working hours for live-in worker is not fixed which leads to exploitation.
• Live-in worker has no AC no Privacy. Many households deny access of toilets to their domestic workers due to caste based discrimination.
• Domestic Workers are not usually granted maternity leave, privilege and sick leave. There is some amount of kichkich happens usually when workers ask for leave.
SOLUTIONS
• Decentralized boards be established and minimum wages should be based on a living wage and establish the minimum level of income which all domestic workers should receive.
• Cost of accommodation should be only considered “in-kind” if it is a separate living quarter where the worker can be granted privacy and for example be able to live with her family. A space in the house should not be considered as accommodation worthy of in-kind payment.
• The maximum number of working hours for an adult worker should not exceed 48 hours in a week and nine hours in a day. Any worker working overtime is entitled to wages of such overtime work at twice the ordinary rate of wages.
• If a family cannot offer “reasonable” degree of privacy and accommodation that is safe and decent, respects the worker’s privacy and provides meals of good quality and quantity, they should not be permitted to have live-in domestic workers. Access to toilets during work is essential.
• The worker should be entitled to be paid sick leave (wages not to be cut) for 12 days a year. Both live in and live out workers should receive one month privilege leave and when the employer goes on leave the wages should not be cut. Maternity leave of at least 14 weeks with half of original salary to be given.
HOW THESE PROVISONS TO BE ENFORCED?
1. To strengthen the organizations of domestic workers, particularly through trade unions and raise the status of domestic workers equivalent to wage labourers.
2. Change in definition on “workmen”- to extend application to domestic workers is important.
This is especially the case in regulating the so called “placement agencies” as there are no laws to regulate the functioning of domestic workers’ placement agencies, though there are laws to regulate employment and placement of migrant and contract workers but as households are not considered as workplace and domestic workers do not come under the definition of ‘workmen’, the placement agencies become safely outside the existing regulatory framework.
3. As a “service provider” placement agencies can charge a fee but they should operate with the principle of promoting the welfare of domestic workers and uphold their rights and that these agencies should not have any role in salary collection orpayment, etc.
In order to weed out unscrupulous operators driven purely by profit and practicing exploitative tactics, it has been suggested that those not conforming to minimum positive criteria shall not be authorized.
4. Inclusion of domestic worker in the Minimum Wages Act and the development of a welfare board in every State.
5. Facilitate linkages between Labour Departments and civil society organizations, particularly Unions, NGOs and Resident Welfare Organizations.
WHAT IS THE MODERN-DAY SLAVERY?
Modern slaveryincludes slavery, slavery-like practices (such as debt bondage, forced marriage, and sale or exploitation of children), human trafficking and forced labour.
What is Trafficking?
It is the recruitment, transportation, transfer or receipt of persons with the intent of exploiting the person through:
• Prostitution of others;
• Sexual exploitation;
• Forced labour;
• Slavery (or similar practices);
• Servitude; and
• Removal of organs.
What is Slavery?
It includes practices like: debt bondage, forced or servile marriage, sale or exploitation of children (including in armed conflict) and descent-based slavery.
The Global Slavery Index provides a ranking of 162 countries, reflecting combined measure of 3 factors:
• estimated prevalence of modern slavery by population,
• A measure of child marriage, and
• A measure of human trafficking in and out of a country.
The countries with the highest numbers of enslaved people are India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, Thailand, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Taken together, thesecountries account for 76% of the total estimate of 29.8 million in modern slavery.
(Look at the colour of Pakistan, Myanmar and Afghanistan!!!!!!)
Indian Position
The country with the largest estimated number of people in modern slavery is India(prevalence rank=4) and estimated to have between 1.33 and 1.47 crore people enslaved. It is trailing Mauritania, Haiti and Pakistan in the Global Slavery Index.
India exhibits the full spectrum of different forms of modern slavery, from severe forms of inter-generational bonded labour across various industries to the worst forms of child labour, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced and servile marriage.
Quote from Report “many of India’s enslaved have not been moved from one place to another – they are enslaved in their own villages”
THIS IS DUE TO
1. Prevalence of Chronic Bonded Labour SystemA person becomes a bonded laborer when their labor is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan. The person is then tricked or trapped into working for very little or no pay, often for seven days a week.Bonded laborers are forced to work to repay debts their employer says they owe, and they are not allowed to work for anyone else. Debts that are not paid off in a debtor's lifetime can be passed down to their descendants, making the original debtor's family indebted to the families of rural landlords and money lenders, across multiple generations =Chronic Bonded Labour System.
Bonded labor was legally abolished in India in 1976 but it remains prevalent, with weak enforcement of the law by governments.States such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are majorculprits, with high levels of hereditary forms of debt bondage in rural areas.In the Punjab hundreds of thousands men, women and children are forced to work as bonded laborers in quarries and brick kilns where they receive little or no pay in return for a loan typically used for survival.
2. Women & Children’s Trafficking
Factors Leading to Women’s Trafficking
SUPPLY FACTORS
DEMAND FACTORS
- Poverty
- Female Feticide
- Natural Disasters (floods, cyclones etc.)
- Domestic violence
- Unemployment
- Lure of job / marriage
with false promises
- Domestic servitude
- Traditional / Religious
prostitution (Devdasi)
- Lack of Employment
opportunities
TRAFFICKING - Migration
- Hope for jobs / marriage
- Demand for cheap labour
- Enhanced vulnerability
due to lack of awareness
- Creation of need and market by sex traffickers for ‘experimental’ and ‘tender’ sex.
- Sex tourism
- Internet pornography
- Organized crime generating high profits with low risk for traffickers.
Children and their families are often lured by the promise of better employment and a more prosperous life far from their homes.It violates a child’s right to grow up in a family environment and exposes him or her to a range of dangers, including violence and sexual abuse.
Despite being banned by the Supreme Court in 2006, child labour continues to be widespread due to weakenforcement. The 2001 Census says India has 12.26 million working children, aged 5-14, with themaximum coming from Uttar Pradesh.
What is Children Trafficked for?
Labour Illegal Activities
Sexual Exploitation
- Bonded labour
- Domestic work
- Agricultural labour
- Construction work
- Carpet industry, garment industry, fish / shrimp export as well as other sites of work in the formal and informal economy.
- Begging
- Organ trade
- Drug peddling smuggling - Forced prostitution
- Socially and religiously sanctified forms of prostitutions
- Sex tourism&
Child Pornography
BUT WHY ARE WE PERFORMING SO BADLY??????
As per the report, the amount of modern slavery in a country is related to important factors such as corruption and human development.
Modern Slavery and CorruptionIf the rule of law is effective it protects citizens from being enslaved. If the rule of law is corrupted, people are not protected and criminals can pay off officials and act with impunity.
The countries which are more corrupt as per the Transparency International
Index (TII), have the prevalence of modern slavery.
No doubt it explains why India, which poorly ranked on TII, also performs badly in MSI.
HOWEVER WE DON’T NEED TO KNOW THIS FROM ANYONE ELSE
Human DevelopmentThe level of a country’s human development reflects its economic well-being, which in turn affect the poverty levels and deprivation a citizen might face. On the other hand, higher levels of educational attainment, elevated health care, and the chance of effective citizenship, all tend to allow people to protect themselves from vulnerability to modern slavery.
Poverty is one of the factors that increase vulnerability to enslavement. Also, a lack of economic development can mean inadequate resources are available to maintain an effective criminal justice or labor protection system.
The countries like India which have low levels of HDI also have higher levels of modern slavery.
Role of Caste System and Poverty Poverty and India’s caste system are significant contributing factors to its modern slavery problem. Indians most vulnerable to modern slavery are dalits and adivasis, especially women and children
‘Non-labour’ forms of modern slavery, including forced and servile marriage, fraudulent adoption and organ trafficking have been identified in India. Forced marriage is partly fuelled by sex-ratio disparity – those states with worst disparity import girls into servile marriages from poorer states.
“With skewed sex ratiosit is impossible to find a bride for each man, and ‘importing a bride’ has become the only solution,” said the 2013 India Country Assessment Report released by the United Nations Office on Drugsand Crimes (UNODC). Punjab (893 females per 1000 males) and Haryana (877 females per 1000 males) have thelowest sex ratios in the country.
What needs to happen?
India should
• Reform Criminal Justice system to provide quick and free justice to the modern day slaves.Strengthen protections for victims of modern slavery and ensure that they are not criminalized. Undertake national prevalence estimates on modern slavery.
• Ratify and implement the Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, and the Domestic Work Convention.
• Require States to report on how they have followed up on the Supreme Court Judgment of October 15, 2012, requiring all states to carry out surveys to identify and release those in bonded labor. The efforts currently being made in the State of Karnataka should be promoted and followed by other States.
• At the State level, develop and implement action plans on bonded labor in every state and union territory, following the example of the Karnataka State Action Plan on Bonded Labor 2008. Appoint a high level responsible officer at the State and District level, who focuses only on tasks related to bonded labor and other forms of modern slavery.
• Ensure ‘raids’ follow victim-centered procedures to ensure they help more than harm.
• Continue efforts directed at addressing the underlying causes of modern slavery – such as poverty, illiteracy, and underemployment, violence against women, discrimination, and lack of access to entitlements such as functioning schools and health services, and social exclusion.
byShrey Khanna
Sources
1. http://wiego.org/informal_economy_law/domestic-workers-india
2. http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/bonded_labour.aspx
3. http://jmi.ac.in/upload/publication/Child_Trafficking_in_India.pdf
4. http://www.unodc.org/documents/humantrafficking/India_Training_material/Handbook_for_Law_Enforcement_Agencies_in_India.pdf
INDEX
1. Domestic workers in India
(i) Problems
(ii) Solutions
(iii) How Solutions to be Enforced?
2. Modern Day Slavery & Slavery Index
3. Indian Position
(i) THIS IS DUE TO
(a) Chronic Bonded Labor System
(b) Women’ and Child Trafficking
(ii) BUT WHY ARE WE PERFORMING SO BADLY?
(iii) What needs to happen?
4. Sources
DOMESTIC WORKERS IN INDIA
The domestic worker is a person who is employed for remuneration in any household through any agency or directly, either on atemporary or permanent, part time or full time basis to do thehousehold work, but does not include any member of the family of anemployer.
TYPES
a) Part-time worker who works for one or more employers for a specified number of hours/day or performs specific tasks for each of the multiple employers every day. Ex-Bartanwali, jhaduvali aunties etc.
b) Full-time worker who works for a single employer every day for a specified number of hours(normal full day work) and who returns back to her/his home every day after work. Ex-fulltime ayah.
c) Live-in worker who works full time for a single employer and also stays on the premises of theemployer or in a dwelling provided by the employer (which is close or next to the house of the employer)and does not return back to her/his home every day after work.(They are most vulnerable)
PROBLEMS
• Several States have notified minimum wages for domestic work but have no norms for implementation or monitoring. Generally wages are self-regulated based on socio-economic profile of employers, tasks performed and combination of tasks.
• In terms of accommodation, there are several different arrangements- quarter, room and living in the house in the same space as the family. Accommodation can be a great support as well as a source of exploitation.
• The maximum number of working hours for live-in worker is not fixed which leads to exploitation.
• Live-in worker has no AC no Privacy. Many households deny access of toilets to their domestic workers due to caste based discrimination.
• Domestic Workers are not usually granted maternity leave, privilege and sick leave. There is some amount of kichkich happens usually when workers ask for leave.
SOLUTIONS
• Decentralized boards be established and minimum wages should be based on a living wage and establish the minimum level of income which all domestic workers should receive.
• Cost of accommodation should be only considered “in-kind” if it is a separate living quarter where the worker can be granted privacy and for example be able to live with her family. A space in the house should not be considered as accommodation worthy of in-kind payment.
• The maximum number of working hours for an adult worker should not exceed 48 hours in a week and nine hours in a day. Any worker working overtime is entitled to wages of such overtime work at twice the ordinary rate of wages.
• If a family cannot offer “reasonable” degree of privacy and accommodation that is safe and decent, respects the worker’s privacy and provides meals of good quality and quantity, they should not be permitted to have live-in domestic workers. Access to toilets during work is essential.
• The worker should be entitled to be paid sick leave (wages not to be cut) for 12 days a year. Both live in and live out workers should receive one month privilege leave and when the employer goes on leave the wages should not be cut. Maternity leave of at least 14 weeks with half of original salary to be given.
HOW THESE PROVISONS TO BE ENFORCED?
1. To strengthen the organizations of domestic workers, particularly through trade unions and raise the status of domestic workers equivalent to wage labourers.
2. Change in definition on “workmen”- to extend application to domestic workers is important.
This is especially the case in regulating the so called “placement agencies” as there are no laws to regulate the functioning of domestic workers’ placement agencies, though there are laws to regulate employment and placement of migrant and contract workers but as households are not considered as workplace and domestic workers do not come under the definition of ‘workmen’, the placement agencies become safely outside the existing regulatory framework.
3. As a “service provider” placement agencies can charge a fee but they should operate with the principle of promoting the welfare of domestic workers and uphold their rights and that these agencies should not have any role in salary collection orpayment, etc.
In order to weed out unscrupulous operators driven purely by profit and practicing exploitative tactics, it has been suggested that those not conforming to minimum positive criteria shall not be authorized.
4. Inclusion of domestic worker in the Minimum Wages Act and the development of a welfare board in every State.
5. Facilitate linkages between Labour Departments and civil society organizations, particularly Unions, NGOs and Resident Welfare Organizations.
WHAT IS THE MODERN-DAY SLAVERY?
Modern slaveryincludes slavery, slavery-like practices (such as debt bondage, forced marriage, and sale or exploitation of children), human trafficking and forced labour.
What is Trafficking?
It is the recruitment, transportation, transfer or receipt of persons with the intent of exploiting the person through:
• Prostitution of others;
• Sexual exploitation;
• Forced labour;
• Slavery (or similar practices);
• Servitude; and
• Removal of organs.
What is Slavery?
It includes practices like: debt bondage, forced or servile marriage, sale or exploitation of children (including in armed conflict) and descent-based slavery.
The Global Slavery Index provides a ranking of 162 countries, reflecting combined measure of 3 factors:
• estimated prevalence of modern slavery by population,
• A measure of child marriage, and
• A measure of human trafficking in and out of a country.
The countries with the highest numbers of enslaved people are India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, Thailand, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Taken together, thesecountries account for 76% of the total estimate of 29.8 million in modern slavery.
(Look at the colour of Pakistan, Myanmar and Afghanistan!!!!!!)
Indian Position
The country with the largest estimated number of people in modern slavery is India(prevalence rank=4) and estimated to have between 1.33 and 1.47 crore people enslaved. It is trailing Mauritania, Haiti and Pakistan in the Global Slavery Index.
India exhibits the full spectrum of different forms of modern slavery, from severe forms of inter-generational bonded labour across various industries to the worst forms of child labour, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced and servile marriage.
Quote from Report “many of India’s enslaved have not been moved from one place to another – they are enslaved in their own villages”
THIS IS DUE TO
1. Prevalence of Chronic Bonded Labour SystemA person becomes a bonded laborer when their labor is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan. The person is then tricked or trapped into working for very little or no pay, often for seven days a week.Bonded laborers are forced to work to repay debts their employer says they owe, and they are not allowed to work for anyone else. Debts that are not paid off in a debtor's lifetime can be passed down to their descendants, making the original debtor's family indebted to the families of rural landlords and money lenders, across multiple generations =Chronic Bonded Labour System.
Bonded labor was legally abolished in India in 1976 but it remains prevalent, with weak enforcement of the law by governments.States such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are majorculprits, with high levels of hereditary forms of debt bondage in rural areas.In the Punjab hundreds of thousands men, women and children are forced to work as bonded laborers in quarries and brick kilns where they receive little or no pay in return for a loan typically used for survival.
2. Women & Children’s Trafficking
Factors Leading to Women’s Trafficking
SUPPLY FACTORS
DEMAND FACTORS
- Poverty
- Female Feticide
- Natural Disasters (floods, cyclones etc.)
- Domestic violence
- Unemployment
- Lure of job / marriage
with false promises
- Domestic servitude
- Traditional / Religious
prostitution (Devdasi)
- Lack of Employment
opportunities
TRAFFICKING - Migration
- Hope for jobs / marriage
- Demand for cheap labour
- Enhanced vulnerability
due to lack of awareness
- Creation of need and market by sex traffickers for ‘experimental’ and ‘tender’ sex.
- Sex tourism
- Internet pornography
- Organized crime generating high profits with low risk for traffickers.
Children and their families are often lured by the promise of better employment and a more prosperous life far from their homes.It violates a child’s right to grow up in a family environment and exposes him or her to a range of dangers, including violence and sexual abuse.
Despite being banned by the Supreme Court in 2006, child labour continues to be widespread due to weakenforcement. The 2001 Census says India has 12.26 million working children, aged 5-14, with themaximum coming from Uttar Pradesh.
What is Children Trafficked for?
Labour Illegal Activities
Sexual Exploitation
- Bonded labour
- Domestic work
- Agricultural labour
- Construction work
- Carpet industry, garment industry, fish / shrimp export as well as other sites of work in the formal and informal economy.
- Begging
- Organ trade
- Drug peddling smuggling - Forced prostitution
- Socially and religiously sanctified forms of prostitutions
- Sex tourism&
Child Pornography
BUT WHY ARE WE PERFORMING SO BADLY??????
As per the report, the amount of modern slavery in a country is related to important factors such as corruption and human development.
Modern Slavery and CorruptionIf the rule of law is effective it protects citizens from being enslaved. If the rule of law is corrupted, people are not protected and criminals can pay off officials and act with impunity.
The countries which are more corrupt as per the Transparency International
Index (TII), have the prevalence of modern slavery.
No doubt it explains why India, which poorly ranked on TII, also performs badly in MSI.
HOWEVER WE DON’T NEED TO KNOW THIS FROM ANYONE ELSE
Human DevelopmentThe level of a country’s human development reflects its economic well-being, which in turn affect the poverty levels and deprivation a citizen might face. On the other hand, higher levels of educational attainment, elevated health care, and the chance of effective citizenship, all tend to allow people to protect themselves from vulnerability to modern slavery.
Poverty is one of the factors that increase vulnerability to enslavement. Also, a lack of economic development can mean inadequate resources are available to maintain an effective criminal justice or labor protection system.
The countries like India which have low levels of HDI also have higher levels of modern slavery.
Role of Caste System and Poverty Poverty and India’s caste system are significant contributing factors to its modern slavery problem. Indians most vulnerable to modern slavery are dalits and adivasis, especially women and children
‘Non-labour’ forms of modern slavery, including forced and servile marriage, fraudulent adoption and organ trafficking have been identified in India. Forced marriage is partly fuelled by sex-ratio disparity – those states with worst disparity import girls into servile marriages from poorer states.
“With skewed sex ratiosit is impossible to find a bride for each man, and ‘importing a bride’ has become the only solution,” said the 2013 India Country Assessment Report released by the United Nations Office on Drugsand Crimes (UNODC). Punjab (893 females per 1000 males) and Haryana (877 females per 1000 males) have thelowest sex ratios in the country.
What needs to happen?
India should
• Reform Criminal Justice system to provide quick and free justice to the modern day slaves.Strengthen protections for victims of modern slavery and ensure that they are not criminalized. Undertake national prevalence estimates on modern slavery.
• Ratify and implement the Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labor, and the Domestic Work Convention.
• Require States to report on how they have followed up on the Supreme Court Judgment of October 15, 2012, requiring all states to carry out surveys to identify and release those in bonded labor. The efforts currently being made in the State of Karnataka should be promoted and followed by other States.
• At the State level, develop and implement action plans on bonded labor in every state and union territory, following the example of the Karnataka State Action Plan on Bonded Labor 2008. Appoint a high level responsible officer at the State and District level, who focuses only on tasks related to bonded labor and other forms of modern slavery.
• Ensure ‘raids’ follow victim-centered procedures to ensure they help more than harm.
• Continue efforts directed at addressing the underlying causes of modern slavery – such as poverty, illiteracy, and underemployment, violence against women, discrimination, and lack of access to entitlements such as functioning schools and health services, and social exclusion.
byShrey Khanna
Sources
1. http://wiego.org/informal_economy_law/domestic-workers-india
2. http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/bonded_labour.aspx
3. http://jmi.ac.in/upload/publication/Child_Trafficking_in_India.pdf
4. http://www.unodc.org/documents/humantrafficking/India_Training_material/Handbook_for_Law_Enforcement_Agencies_in_India.pdf
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