Daily Times

The Provincial Assembly of the Punjab recently passed the Domestic Workers Act 2019 for the regulation of wages and working conditions of domestic workers. Never before in the history of Pakistan was such a law passed for the enforcement of fundamental rights of domestic workers.

Earlier, the honourable Lahore High Court gave a detailed verdict in a public interest petition on the enforcement of fundamental rights of domestic workers. I was the lead counsel on behalf of the petitioner, a domestic worker. In his judgment, Justice Jawad Hassan held that the Constitution provides that the domestic workers are entitled to all fundamental rights. These include the right to protection from exploitation, the right to life – including the right to livelihood, the right to equality, the right to trade and business and the right to education. Other rights enshrined in Articles 37 and 38 of the Constitution are also available to them. The honourable judge gave a clear observation in the following words:

“A Right is a power, privilege, faculty, or demand, inherent in one person and incident upon another. Rights can be moral or legal. Along with legal rights, there exist moral rights as well, which in general have subjective support while legal rights have the objective support of the State. Legal right is an interest, which is recognized and protected by the rule of legal justice. Every right has interests but all interests cannot be rights. Statutes… do not really give rights, but in contrary deprives citizens from certain rights because all citizens are born with rights. Governments through such statues control the behaviours of individuals by drawing perimeters around those rights citizens possess by birth.”

The judgement further states that the law may provide mechanism for enforcement of a right but the existence of the right does not depend upon the creation of such a mechanism. The right exists prior to and independent of the mechanism of enforcement. It is quite obvious that unless a right is recognized by the State it would not have any validity or weight to be imposed upon others. A right recognized by the Government will be protected by the Government and the Judiciary.

Domestic workers comprise a majority of all workers employed in Pakistan’s large informal economy. They are particularly vulnerable to exploitation – financial and otherwise. Domestic work is considered by the International Labour Organization as one of the occupations with the worst conditions of employment – characterized by long work days, low pay and limited social protection coverage.

An ILO publication notes:

“Domestic work is one of the world’s oldest occupations. Domestic workers may cook or clean, or care for children, the elderly or the disabled, tasks that have been traditionally assigned to women in the vast majority of societies and that have been largely uncompensated. However, domestic work may also include gardening, chauffeuring or providing security services, tasks more often performed by men. In developing and developed countries alike, the domestic work sector absorbs significant numbers of workers, many of whom belong to the poorest segments of society with little access to other work of employment, generally as a result of limited educational opportunities. According to the most recent global and regional estimates produced by the ILO, at least 52.6 million women and men above the age of 15 were domestic workers in their main job. This figure represents some 3.6 per cent of global wage employment. Women comprise the overwhelming majority of domestic workers; 43.6 million workers or some 83 per cent of the total. Domestic work is an important source of wage employment for women, accounting for 7.5 per cent of female employees worldwide.”

There is no end to the plight of child domestic workers. Millions of them are sold, exploited, abused, tortured, raped and killed. More children, in fact, die in domestic work in Pakistan than any other occupation

In Pakistan, domestic labour is the most hazardous and fatal profession as has been indicated by various news reports of violence against child domestic workers. Domestic work is one of the oldest professions in the history of the world with highest workforce participation by women and children. It is mostly an undervalued and low-paid activity. The undervaluation stems from the assumption that women are innately capable of performing this work, thus it is considered unskilled. Moreover, it is considered an extension of the unpaid domestic work, which in itself is unregulated and unaccounted for. An ILO report estimated that around 4 to 10 per cent of total employment in the developing countries is in domestic work. While males are also employed as domestic workers (like gardeners, chauffeurs, cooks and guards), a large percentage of the domestic workers are women (engaged for home, child and elderly care).

Mr Justice Hassan observed that there was no end to the plight of child domestic workers. Millions of them were sold, exploited, abused, tortured, raped and killed. In no other occupation in Pakistan have there been more deaths of children than in domestic labour. Between January 2010 and June 2013, 41 cases of child domestic workers were reported in the media. Of these, 19 died from severe torture or from poisoning by their employers. Continuously disturbing reporting of torture and murder of child domestic workers indicates the moral decay of society and the State in that both have allowed the powerful to brutally torture and murder children because they belong to poor, marginalized and working class families.

The judgement paved the way for the courts to adopt a reformist approach to enable the legislature to formulate a law/policy for the enforcement of fundamental rights of a neglected class.

The writer is a human rights activist, constitutional lawyer and a teacher