Domestic workers’ plight

The plight of domestic workers in Pakistan remains a source of shame for the country, yet little has been done to address the potential for abuse of such workers, almost all of whom hail from the most economically downtrodden segments of society. Although there are no reliable official statistics, the most conservative estimates from non-governmental organisations and international bodies such as ILO put the figure above eight million, meaning that the real number is probably significantly higher. An ILO study of developing countries says 4 to 10% of developing countries’ populations are domestic workers, meaning that the number could be well over 20 million Pakistanis. Now couple that with the fact that domestic workers are often women, and many are well below the legal working age, and the potential for abuse explodes.

The government has legislated 15 as the legal working age, made the provision of healthcare mandatory and, depending on the province, provided several other workers’ rights, but in practice, little is done to proactively enforce these laws, and almost all enforcement is punitive after a worker is subjected to the most intense abuse. The recent case of Rizwana — the 13-year-old child maid allegedly tortured by a civil judge’s wife — shows how ineffectual the laws are at stopping people from committing crimes in the first place. While the accused dispute the girl’s age, it is still concerning that even judges are pushing the envelope by hiring workers who are barely above the legal work.

Yet, years after eight-year-old Zohra Shah was killed for releasing a caged parrot, and regular reports of children such as Imran, Uzma and countless others being murdered for committing “sin” like eating food from their employers’ kitchen, we still never hear about anyone being fined for hiring underage workers or subjecting legally employed minors to illegal working conditions, even though this is in plain sight in large markets all across the country.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 9^th, 2023.

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