Wanted: Home Helps' Rights

In the absence of an exclusive legal framework, they are dependent on the kindness of individuals

- Sohini Bhattacharya

RESHMA CAME TO WORK for me when I shifted to Mumbai in November 1999. She was like clockwork—if the bell rang at 7 a.m., you knew it was Reshma. She was quiet, smiling and diligent. Reed thin with a rounded stomach, I often wondered whether she was malnourished—I plied her with food, which she would always take away with a nod and a smile. I never knew if she ended up having it. My queries were answered with monosyllables and smiles.

One January day in 2000, a happy young man, her husband, came around to tell me Reshma has had a baby—a boy. Two weeks later, Reshma was back at work, reed thin but without the belly this time—quiet, smiling and diligent.

She must have been at least seven months pregnant when she started working with us, but she did not tell me fearing I may not have hired a pregnant woman. She told me, much later, she had lost two jobs already because she announced to the employer that she was pregnant. And in one of those houses she has been employed for over four years. That is India’s domestic worker for you—invisible and unrecognized, overworked, underpaid and abused.