We Need a Law to Protect Domestic Workers

Why India Needs Urgent Legislative Protections for Domestic Workers

India’s refusal to enact a comprehensive law for domestic workers reflects systemic neglect of one of its most exploited and invisible labor groups. The Supreme Court's directive, issued in October 2025, is a critical opportunity to address decades of policy inertia, yet it risks being consigned to bureaucratic oblivion. The absence of legal recognition not only undermines fundamental rights but entrenches the socio-economic vulnerabilities of a workforce predominantly composed of marginalized communities — women, SCs, STs, and migrants. Domestic work, hidden within private households, demands public accountability through enforceable laws.

The Institutional Landscape: What Exists and What Doesn’t

Domestically, the legal framework governing labor protections remains fractured and exclusionary, offering minimal safeguards specific to domestic workers. Key gaps include:

• Legislative Absence: The Domestic Workers (Regulation of Work and Social Security) Bill, 2017, drafted by the National Platform for Domestic Workers (NPDW), languishes in political limbo without parliamentary ratification.
• ILO Convention 189: Despite voting in favor of international standards for domestic workers’ rights in 2011, India has failed to ratify the treaty, signaling weak alignment with global labor norms.
• Social Security Deficit: While the eShram portal (launched in 2021) has registered unorganized workers, including domestic workers, its utility in delivering tangible benefits like minimum wages, housing, or health insurance remains severely limited.

The Tamil Nadu and Karnataka models illustrate partial progress. Tamil Nadu’s Welfare Board offers pensions and education aid, yet less than 5% of workers are registered. Karnataka’s recently proposed Domestic Workers (Social Security and Welfare) Bill sets benchmarks including employer contributions to a welfare fund, yet worker participation is still negligible. These state initiatives underline the need for coherent national standards.

Unpaid Labor, Gender Vulnerability, and Exploitation

Domestic workers toil under conditions marked by gendered exploitation and caste-based marginalization. NSSO’s Time Use Survey underscores that women spend 305 minutes daily on unpaid domestic services, exacerbating financial and social exclusions that limit access to formal employment. Approximately 80% of domestic workers are women, predominantly SCs and STs, operating in private spaces where abuse is rampant and oversight absent.

Child labor remains endemic in domestic work, with trafficking networks exploiting socio-economic vulnerabilities during crises. During the pandemic, unregistered domestic workers were systematically excluded from social protections, including vaccination access, a stark reminder of their invisibility in policy frameworks.

International Precedents: What South Africa Got Right

South Africa’s progressive inclusion of domestic workers under its Basic Conditions of Employment Act serves as a sharp contrast. The act mandates minimum wages, overtime pay, annual leave, and unemployment insurance for domestic workers. Unlike India, which struggles to even recognize these rights legislatively, South Africa demonstrates the efficacy of enforceable legal provisions alongside institutional backing like labor inspectorates.

Engaging with the Counter-Narrative: ‘Legislation as an Administrative Burden’

Skeptics argue that enacting a comprehensive domestic worker law risks overburdening state capacity. Registration mechanisms, employer oversight, and grievance redressal systems require robust bureaucratic infrastructure, which is often underfunded. However, this critique ignores the uncoordinated administrative costs of exclusion — from informal child labor networks to lost GDP potential from unpaid domestic labor. Building institutions that regulate domestic work is less an administrative encumbrance and more a democratic imperative.

Structural Critique: Why Existing Approaches Fail

Regulatory Capture: Agencies mediating domestic worker employment remain unregulated, often functioning as exploitative brokers. Registration under the eShram portal or state-specific welfare boards does little to limit exploitation at this intermediary level.

Urban Planning Failures: Marginalized domestic workers are excluded from city infrastructure designs. Access to housing, sanitation, and healthcare is systematically neglected, amplifying vulnerabilities for migrant workers living in informal urban spaces.

Judicial Delays: While courts, like the Madurai Bench of the High Court, have urged legislative action, enforcement gaps persist. Appeals by domestic worker unions are often stalled by procedural bottlenecks in lower judiciary mechanisms.

An Urgent Imperative: Towards Legislative Accountability

India must enact a national framework that consolidates fragmented state-level approaches into enforceable protections. Such legislation should include:

• Mandatory registration of workers, employers, and agencies through tripartite boards.
• Minimum wages aligned with the Consumer Price Index, updated biannually.
• Extension of workplace harassment complaint committees under the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act to domestic workspaces.
• Dedicated housing and healthcare entitlements for migrant domestic workers.

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