Domestic workers remain legally unprotected

In December last year, the Sindh Assembly referred the draft of an important bill, the Sindh Domestic Workers Welfare Bill 2025, to the relevant standing committee for further review. However, due to the committee not holding a meeting, the bill has still not been reintroduced in the Assembly.

The delay in the approval of the bill has left hundreds of thousands of domestic workers deprived of legal protection for their rights. It is estimated that in Karachi alone, the number of such workers ranges between 1 to 1.2 million.

The proposed bill was a significant legislative step aimed at protecting the rights and welfare of domestic workers in the province. It was designed to regulate the domestic work sector, guarantee fair wages, and provide legal protection to workers. These workers include women and children engaged in cooking and cleaning in homes, as well as domestic drivers, watchmen, and others.

According to an official of the Sindh Assembly, the draft bill was sent by the Speaker to the relevant standing committee in December last year for further consideration, with instructions to return it within a week along with recommendations. A meeting of the standing committee was scheduled in December but was postponed because the Provincial Minister for Labour Saeed Ghani travelled to the United States.

The proposed law would ban domestic work for children under 16 and limit those under 18 to light duties. Employers must issue written contracts detailing hours and responsibilities. Work would be capped at eight hours a day and six days a week, with double pay for extra work, along with leave benefits, paid maternity leave, and minimum wage protection.

Violations would lead to fines, with disputes taken to the Labour Court. The bill also ensures safe conditions, proper accommodation for live-in workers, medical care, accident reporting, and one month’s notice or pay before dismissal. Labor leader Nasir Mansoor termed the delay in approving the domestic workers’ protection bill in Sindh as a serious negligence.

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“Sindh has historically been ahead of other provinces in legislating for the protection of workers and marginalized communities, and therefore the provincial government should not have delayed approval of this bill. Not only Punjab but also Islamabad has had a domestic workers’ protection law in force for quite some time,” noted Mansoor.

It is worth noting that in Punjab, a law protecting the rights and welfare of domestic workers was passed in 2019. Similarly, in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), domestic workers were granted protection under the 2021 Home-Based Workers law. In Balochistan, certain protections for child domestic workers exist under laws against forced child labor.

There are some differences between the laws of Punjab and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and the proposed Sindh bill. For example, in Punjab, children under 15 are prohibited from domestic employment, and in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the minimum age of employment is 14, whereas the proposed bill in Sindh sets the minimum age of labour at 16.