The Labour Law of Bangladesh and the Domestic Workers’ Rights

Aruna Bala and Sajib Hossain write for DOT : 
Nowadays, the term ‘domestic worker’ holds a great antipathy around the world impliedly whereas, historically we are well-known as a ‘servant/ slave instate. With the time flows, the practice and treatment towards domestic workers slightly has changed but still the execution of national laws for ensuring their rights is way behind.
Today, domestic workers in Bangladesh form as a demoted and highly neglected group among other groups. They are not only disadvantaged people but also alienated and the situation is more miserable due to the huge number of women and children workers. Mostly poor families from remote areas prefer to send their children or wives to the urban areas or migrate them to abroad as a domestic worker with a big dream of being economically furnished. But in reality the scenario is completely different, they repeatedly face a very low rate of wages with excessively long hours, even there is no any guaranteed weekly day off or rest and at the same times they do faces severe physical, mental and sexual abuse along with restrictions on freedom of movement. From the review of the
• Labour Force Survey- 2006 the total number of the domestic workers in Bangladesh are 331,000
• Child Domestic workers are 420,000 (ILO-UNICEF Baseline Survey-2007)
Among them 83% are female, who are mostly child and young in age. Overall, from the calculation of the household of the Dhaka and Chittagang City Corporation, the expectednumbers of the domestic workers are about 2 million.
There are several legislative provisions related to the workers or labour well executed in the eye of law than the domestic workers, likely;
• Both the Bangladesh Labour Act- 2006& 2013excluded domestic workers from a legal coverage against the abuse and the harsh working conditions and also from any other form of exploitation.,
• Domestic Servant Registration Ordinance-1961, they only aware of registration or identity card rather than their legal protection or voice for rights.
On the other hand, there are several organizations and treaties worked hard for the protection of the domestic workers and also standpoint against the exclusion of the domestic workers, namely;
• Total 32 members of Domestic Workers Rights Network
• National Domestic Women Workers Union
• Trade Union Centre’s
• Human Rights groups and
• BILS the DWRN secretariat
Until the ILO, the domestic workers were excluded from legal protection and their rights to establish. In response to a long cherished demand for justice ILO in its 100th sessions of International Labour Conference on 16th June, 2011 has adopted the convention onDecent Work for Domestic workers (No.189) and accompanying recommendations (No. 201). This Convention also includes ‘What is Domestic Work? and Who is a domestic workers? and this convention also includes which employer of domestic worker?, in implementing the convention will workers and employers be consulted, basic right of domestic workers, remuneration, working hours, occupational safety and health, social security. Also they are concerned about child worker and migrant domestic workers.
After several domestic worker violence incidents above mentioned NGO’s and other treaties and ILO has put pressure on the Bangladesh government forapproving the policy of the drafted ‘Domestic Worker Protection and Welfare Policy-2010. Through the Domestic Worker Protection and Welfare Policy-2015the major point has been included where domestic worker will not be known as a servant rather will be acknowledged as a profession of doing domestic work along with major policies for the employer. Here, the policy suggests that Domestic work shall be recognized as a profession and the employer must need to ensure full time domestic worker salaries and other allowances, they will be entitled to the benefits under the existing labour law including the time rest and relaxation. Employer has to distribute working hours ensuring the proper rest, sleep, entertainment and leaves. Not only that even they have inserted restrictions like minimum age of domestic workers will be 14 for doing light works, those above 18 years will be eligible for heavy works. In the matter of appointing someone 12 years of age, the employer must negotiate the term with a legal guardian of the child under the presence of a third party witness with including responsibilities, date of appointment, preoccupations, leaves and breaks, accommodations diet and clothing allowances. All domestic workers must entitle to a healthy and safe space for sleeping and also space for praying according their religion, here employer will be under the obligation to compensate for any accidents including treatments and mostly female domestic workers will get 4 months of maternity leaves and this policy will also act for the protection of the employers and their families if anything unusual happens and the government will provide ‘helpline ‘for the domestic workers while there will be also an awareness campaign. To fill up the vacuum the High Court Division verdict some guidelines to the government in the case named ‘Bangladesh National Women Lawyers Association (BNWLA) vs Cabinet Division (Writ Petition No.3598 of 2010) that, Compulsory primary education, to prohibit the children up to the age of 12, providing proper training educationally or vocationally aged between 13 and 18 by the employer, includes domestic workers within the definition of worker in the Labour Act-2006. The case relating to the violence upon the domestic worker must be monitored and prosecuted by the government, there has to be mandatory registration of all domestic workers by the employers and obvious there has to be working hours, rest, recreation, salary, home visit with proper medical treatment
Globally all countries should be aware and concern about the protection, treatment and exploitation of the domestic workers rights and discrimination along the lines of sex, race and caste. To inauguratethe concept of the domestic workers protection legally, socially and economically all nations have to be well trained and awaken mentally.
The authors are independent researchers.