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Abuse Among Child Domestic Workers. A Research Study in West Bengal

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Manabendranath Ray and Asha N Iyer, Save the Children UK - West Bengal Office, 2006.

Child Domestic Work has been recognized as one of the most intolerable forms of child work and is a sector that has been identified by the International Labour Organization as a priority sector for removing children from work. The situation of children in domestic work has been compared to a new form of slavery in the ILO Convention on the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour (ILO Convention 182). Various studies, surveys and local observation projects estimate that the worldwide magnitude of this practice is enormous, representing 20 to 40 percent of all recorded instances of child labour.

The basic characteristic of domestic work is that it takes place in the private space of the home, which is not the child’s own home but that of another person, the employer. The characteristic of invisibility that is commonly assigned to it despite its widespread existence is not because it is socially invisible as it is known to exist, but because of its confinement in other people’s homes.  As  a result, it is difficult to bring it out in public and make it an issue for debate and on government agendas.

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Abuse Among Child Domestic Workers. A Research Study in West Bengal