Islamabad - Domestic services are considered as low-income work with no value, security or dignity in our society.

Pakistan is one of those developing countries where women in large numbers are engaged in domestic work.

It is estimated that in Pakistan about 70 per cent of domestic servants are female.

Poverty, illiteracy and lack of resources are some of the reasons, which lead women to the world of domestic services.

The main duties performed by maids include cooking, washing, cleaning, and looking after kids.

The working hours for these duties are not specified, sometimes they do full-time job under difficult circumstances.

The female domestic servants on the one hand have loads of work to do, while on the other hand they are deprived of their fundamental rights.

The primary rights are sufficient wages, defined working hours, medical treatment and protection against harassment.

In Pakistan there is no proper written contract-based job description for domestic work; it is just a verbal contractual agreement between the employer and the worker, which does not include any details about working hours, wages, holidays etc.

Therefore, the workers are bound to do all the household tasks regardless of the time limit.

Owing to this overtime and overload of work they suffer a lot; sometimes they miss important occasions of their lives.

There is no specific wage structure set under the law for domestic workers.

Wages are allocated on the basis of position of employer, service period of worker and residential area of employer.

The minimum fixed salary for domestic workers is Rs11,000 but the amount they are awarded is as high as Rs7,000 or as low as Rs2,000 per month.

Moreover, when the servants get leave for some genuine reasons, most of the time they are not given but when given, their salaries get deducted for the number of days they have been absent.

With such low income survival in a country like Pakistan where inflation rate is at its peak, is quite hard.

Domestic workers at times are not even treated as humans. At times they are not even given off from work.

Section 55-A of Provincial Employees Social Security Ordinance 1965, which covers medical treatment of domestic servants, state that “every employer of a domestic servant shall be liable to provide [medical treatment] at his own cost”.

But this statement is just an exercise on paper as no one seems bothered about implementation of the law.

Similarly, female domestic servants face harassment such as physical, sexual, racial as well as bullying.

There is an Act, Protection against Harassment of Women at the Workplace Act, according to which domestic workers could register harassment complaints against their employers.

Because majority of the female domestic workers are illiterate, they are unable to avail this facility.

Moreover, they resist registering a complaint because domestic work is the only source of their income; they do not take risk of losing their job and tolerate all the ill-human activities.

The problems faced by domestic workers are obvious to everyone.

This issue really needs attention of the government as well as that of the society. The government should make enforceable laws for this sector, and the society should follow them.

–The write is a student at Fatima Jinnah Women University