Describing the work of the Delhi Domestic Workers` Forum and its strategy of organising, including its efforts to work with other like-minded organisations and build an umbrella group, Sr. Ranjita discusses the difficulties of reaching out to domestic workers because access to them is prevented by the placement agencies through which they find employment.

Purpose and History of the Delhi Domestic Workers` Forum

With an aim to prevent the exploitation of domestic workers and trafficking of women and children, the Archdiocese of Delhi promoted the formation of the Delhi Domestic Workers` Forum, which was registered as a Charitable Trust in 2004. The Forum had been working since 2002 with a small group of people headed by Sr. Pratiti, who was appointed as Coordinator of the Forum in 2004.

The work of organising domestic workers began with their meeting regularly in large numbers on Sundays for prayers in different churches. The members of the Forum started talking to them personally and in groups. We also held classes on different issues and organised programmes to share a sense of working towards goals in life. We offered shelter in our centres to those workers, who were having problems in their workplaces. Gradually, the numbers increased. There were already two centres working independently with the domestic workers in Delhi. We started working with these groups of likeminded people, NGOs and centres, and planned to bring all of them under one umbrella group.

Difficulties and Achievements

A large number of girls are placed as domestic workers through illegal placement agencies in and outside of Delhi, and are forcefully made to pay high commissions to these agencies. Domestic workers are not allowed to come out from their employers` houses until their contract is completed. The workers are not given time off or allowed to meet their neighbours. No one is allowed to visit the girls without the permission of the placement agencies. Therefore, it is very difficult to organise those girls, who have been employed through placement agencies. Many of the girls are not aware of their rights and about the dignity of work as domestic workers; therefore, they also often resist cooperation with us.

There has been a change in the mindset of people, of late, to the extent that these girls are actually called `domestic workers`. Ten years ago they were called `ayahs`, `maids`, `naukranis` and so on.

In 2010, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit included domestic workers under the category of unskilled labourers, saying, "Now the wages for unskilled labourers will be Rs 203 per day from Rs 163. Domestic maids and peons come under this category."

The ILO Convention and National Legislation

There are around 90-100 million domestic workers in India (See World Bank Report 2004) providing household services to middle- and upper-income families. Domestic work is the largest sector of female employment in urban India with approximately 3.05 million women employed. It is a fast growing sector having increased by 222 per cent since 1999-2000. In Delhi alone, there are thousands of domestic workers employed in families. These numbers are rising rapidly given the nature of change in society. Most of the domestic workers are women and children. Because of the nature of conditions of their work and the lack of necessary protective legislation, both at the state and the national levels, domestic workers are among the most exploited workers in the country. There is urgent need for national legislation and also state legislation to regulate domestic work. The passing of an ILO Convention on domestic work will be an important impetus towards this effort, and will present a model of `decent work` in domestic work, in which `opportunities for women and men to obtain decent and productive work in conditions of freedom, equity, security and human dignity` will be the central goal.