Acknowledging home as a workplace

"Today is the third International Domestic Workers’ Day. In India, official figures show that there are 4.75 million domestic workers, out of whom three million are women in urban areas. These are contentious figures; perhaps a grave underrepresentation. The actual number is probably closer to 90 million. Therefore, the discourse on ensuring the dignity and the rights for domestic workers has to become far more nuanced than it has been till now. The shame and stigma that domestic workers in India experience is not simply a symptom of their inner life but is also sustained by external, social structures and processes. Any vision of dignified domestic work must take into consideration the poignant issue of prejudice against domestic workers, which is institutionalised not just in informal work relations in individual households, but also in the organised domain of state and public policy.

Caste factor
It should not come as a surprise to any Indian that, very often, the division of tasks and even the hiring of workers is based on their caste and even their religion. It is very difficult for women from the Scheduled Castes to find a job as a cook, and such a denial of opportunity often confines them to their caste occupation or tasks closer to that. The monetary and social value of these tasks is certainly embedded in our history of caste — traditionally, “impure” tasks are even lower paid while domestic work continues being a low paid activity in general. The veiled practices of untouchability by employers perpetuate caste and the stigma associated with caste-based labour. Such practices can be camouflaged by notions of maintaining “hygiene” — having a separate cup for the maid, or cloaked in the name of “privacy,” the maid not being allowed to use the toilet in the house of her employers — but, at the core, they remain casteist.
Propagating prejudices

State machinery and agencies very often embody similar prejudices but in more subtle forms. For example, the association of domestic workers as a group linked with crimes (theft in particular) and the consequential, institutional responses exemplify how official structures actively feed into perpetuating these forms of stigma and stereotypes. The Delhi Police, in its “Appeal and Advisory for Citizens” suggest how “citizens” should avoid sharing access, information and even the display of valuables with “servants/strangers” and must do a police verification of their “servant” before employment..." (Read full article.)