Dignity and Human Rights Violations at the Workplace: Intersectional Vulnerability of Women Domestic Workers in India

Abstract

The paper explored the dignity and human rights violations faced by women domestic workers in India at their workplaces through an intersectional lens. The country has over 50 million domestic workers, primarily women, who face multiple structural vulnerabilities at work. The existing literature on domestic workers focused more on the violations of economic labour rights. The subjective experience of daily loss of dignity, humiliation, and human rights violations at the workplace remains relatively unexplored in India. In this context, a survey was conducted among 600 women domestic workers from three selected States – 200 each in Mizoram, Tamil Nadu, and Kerala. The research team held six focus group discussions with domestic workers and ten in-depth interviews with NGO personnel and activists. A mixed methodology approach was employed, wherein quantitative and qualitative tools were used, followed by data integration to outline the phenomena under enquiry. The study identified multiple forms of restrictions and prohibitions in the workspaces through which discrimination and humiliation of domestic workers occur, violating their rights and dignity. The paper argues that women domestic workers are highly vulnerable to exploitation, and their identity in terms of gender, caste, class, and ethnicity, creates complex forms of intersectional disadvantages. The feminisation of domestic work and the consequent devaluation of work make the intersectional disadvantages, humiliation, harassment, and exploitation generally invisible. The scenario calls for multi-stakeholder interventions and social action to create decent workspaces to improve the working conditions and social well-being of women domestic workers.