It was raining heavily outside; the heavy downpour had continued for days together. May be, due to weather she got cough and cold and today she is suffering from fever. But she cannot ask for a day off from her job as domestic help, where she joined a few months back.
Sashmita Barik (name changed) hails from Bhanjanagar area in Ganjam district. She is a divorcee and has three children to feed. When she was going through hardship, one of her village women suggested her to work as a domestic help in Bhubaneswar city and linked with the placement agency “Shradha Saharjya” working in capital for the last few years.
After a few rounds of discussion, Sashmita got a job as domestic help in a posh locality with Rs 5,000 salary per month. She was happy that this amount will help her to raise her children whom she had kept at her mother’s place, before joining the work.
Every day she woke up between 4.30 am and 5 am and immediately after finishing her routine work, she engaged herself in the domestic chores of her employer. From cleaning utensils, dusting, washing to cooking and taking care of one toddler and two elderly people- all these work are on her shoulder.
“When I agreed to come with them, the employer had promised to give three days leave in a month and only 8-10 hours of work with a break in the day time,” said Sashmita. But she was happy that because of the work she was earning and leading a better life. Her children were also studying in schools. “Now whenever I visit my village to meet my children I have seen a different kind of appreciation and respect among other women and that gives me confidence,” shares Sasmita smilingly.
The placement agency owner Saroj Sahu explains, “The demand for domestic help in Bhubaneswar city has increased a lot in recent years. Every day we get calls from working women, who want to recruit these women as domestic help. Also, women from rural areas want to work here for their survival and support family financially.” Though they try to provide them a safe working atmosphere, sometimes these women complain of harassment ranging from less quantity of food, stale food, not given a proper accommodation and sanitation facility etc.
National Alliance of Women Odisha Chapter (NAWO) and Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) have been working in the State to provide a better working atmosphere, recognition to their work and fixing of a minimum wage for the domestic helps.
The organisation is now under process in formation of a union, and the union will fight for the rights of domestic help. It also proposes to the Government on setting up of a Welfare Board. The board in turn will take care of domestic helps’ health check-up, shelter, maternity, accident costs, pension and other benefits.
“Due to poverty and lack of livelihood opportunity, single women migrate to big cities to work as a full-time domestic helps. These women mostly get placement through agencies; also the demand for these women has increased in cities. To aware these domestic help about their rights and employers about their responsibility, we are working on it,” says NAWO State coordinator lalita Missal, adding due to lack of awareness sometimes these women fall prey to various kinds of harassment. So, there is an urgent need to monitor and track the movements of these migrants. At present, NAWO Odisha is working in five different districts such as Gajapati, Kandhamal, Sundergarh, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar to sensitize domestic helps about their rights.
There is no official data on how many young girls and women migrate to cities and metros to work as domestic help, but the unofficial data reveals hundreds of young girls and women migrate to work in this sector. Social activist Subhashree Ray, working in Sundergarh district on the issues of migration and trafficking explains, “Around 80 per cent women and adolescent migrate from Sundergarh to big cities to work as domestic help. This has been a trend for the last one and a half decade.”
Poverty, lack of livelihood opportunity, restriction of freedom of movement at villages, delayed marriage and lure by the charm of city life, women and girls opt for going outside to work as a domestic help.
While there are instances of women making good earning, there are also instances of many women and girls complaining of physical harassment, long working hours, less quantity of food and low wages. Sometimes, they work unpaid for years, because the employer pays a hefty amount to the middleman and the middleman after placement abscond for years.
“We are unable to fight for these girls due to absence of a law specific for domestic help,” says activist Ray.
The officials at State labour Department admit that as the migration of single women has increased during these days there is a need of survey. In Odisha, domestic help work comes under the informal sector and once they are being identified and issued with ID cards, they will be included with social security schemes like others.
Two years back, lilima Kujur (name changed) decided to migrate to Delhi, the big city where most of her friends are working as domestic help. She also convinced her parents to migrate and got a placement through a middleman of her village. After staying for a few days, she faced the real harassment. She was given roti as regular food while they are habituated with rice. During winters she had to adjust with one blanket, besides, beating and scolding were added to it. She continued her work as domestic help for three years without being paid.
“When we received information through her parents we rescued her, but due to absence of alternate arrangements, she again migrated to big cities to work as domestic help,” the activist says. To protect these women from exploitation a stringent law has to be made. Besides, women who are working as full-time domestic help, their social security needs to be protected, she says further.
(This article is a part of GAATW Media Fellowship -2016 on women migrant worker)