Middle-class India’s
greatest shame is
its employment of
underage
children as domestic
workers
“People eat first,
they later;
People sit on chairs and
they on the floor;
People call them by
their names and
they address us by
titles.’
This is where children of relative
privilege learn early to accept
and normalize inequality, lessons
they learn for life. Since domestic
workers are mostly unregistered
and are an invisible workforce,
the actual numbers may be much
higher. For instance, the study
estimated that households in Delhi
and Mumbai employ six hundred
thousand domestic workers re-
spectively, but activists place the
numbers at one million in each
city. There are three categories of
domestic workers:
• Residential workers who work
24x7.
• Many of who are recruited
through placement agencies;
full-day workers who work
from morning to evening for
nine hours or more.
• Part-time workers who car-
ry out specific tasks in more
than one household and are
normally recruited directly
from and reside in slum areas.
Sector (NCEUS) estimates that 20
per cent of all domestic workers
are under fourteen years of age.
Factors such as poverty, lack of
social security, the increasing gap
between the rich and the poor have
In Indian homes, there are often adversely affected children more
separate plates for the help to eat than any other group.
from, and they almost never eat at
the same table as their employers. We have failed to provide uni-
They are usually made to sit on versal education, which results in
the floor for their meals. They are children dropping out of school
not given the same food as the em- and entering the labour force. Loss
ployers, but rationed quantities of of jobs of parents in a slowdown,
coarser, cheap food, or leftovers.
farmers’ suicide, armed conflicts
and high costs of healthcare are
Additional tasks range from other factors contributing to child
washing and ironing clothes, labour. A widespread problem:
walking the dog, cleaning cars, Due to high poverty and poor
mopping floors and toilets, and schooling opportunities, child la-
many others. They spend many bour is quite prevalent in India.
hours, often without breaks, Child labour is found in rural as
sweeping and swabbing floors, well as urban areas
washing clothes, cooking and
taking care of the aged and chil-
dren.
This is an invisible and power-
less category of workers and,
therefore, there are no reliable
estimates of child domestic work-
ers. The official study conducted
by the National Commission for
Enterprises in the Unorganized
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