Domestic Help and their Rights

Today's Star Weekend Mag had a compelling and warranted expose on the labour laws currently under regulation in Bangladesh. Unfortunately, those labour laws do not apply to domestic help. Domestic help must adhere to the rules set by their masters and/or mistresses. Calling them serfs depending on the people they work for isn't too much of a stretch. Sadly, domestic help, primarily young kids, are expected to work tediously long hours without suitable forms of breaks under the stern principle that any mistakes on their behalf will result in physical abuse from their employers. 

You always hear or read about horrific cases where young children, especially females, are brutally beaten by their mistresses, taunted and mocked by the children left in their care, and/or raped or molested by their masters or other male occupants in the house. It almost seems as if a young female is signing away her right to live once she agrees to work as a domestic help. The amount of stories depicting severe abuse whether phsyical, emotional, mental, and verbal upon hapless domestic help far exceeds the number of stories where domestic help are safely ensconed working with kind families.

It is quite shameful that these domestic helpers who work several long hours at usually terrible conditions are not subjected to labour laws that will ensure better working conditions and wages inclusive of holidays. The public must initiate a mass movement to guarantee domestic help are recognized as human beings entitled to good working terms and hours, decent treatment from their employers, and above all, entitled to voice their experiences if ill treated or worse. Would we, as employees ourselves, expect anything less from our employers?