India plans move to protect maids abroad

New Delhi
6 August 2011

The alarming regularity with which Indian women working as housemaids in the Gulf and West Asian countries are subjected to inhumane treatment, and at times physical, mental and sexual torture, by their employers, has impelled the Indian government to consider negotiating country-specific bilateral agreements or strengthening the existing MoUs by fixing the responsibilities and obligations of all parties concerned, including the employer, the employee, and the recruiting agent.

A majority of the Indian housemaids are located in Kuwait, followed by Oman, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. V Saraswati (40) from Ooty and Shabana Begum from Hyderabad are just two of the recent examples of Indians forced to return home from Saudi Arabia after mistreatment by their respective employers. Shabana Begum had suffered injuries to her spinal cord and had to be operated upon in Saudi Arabia.

New Delhi is likely to use the recently signed MoU on manpower with Oman as a template to negotiate similar agreements with more countries in the Gulf and West Asia.

It is proposed that employers will be required to allow an Indian woman employed as housemaid to use the telephone to call the nearest Indian embassy or mission at least once every week. While this facility has been incorporated in the pact with Oman, New Delhi proposes to extend it to other countries in the region, too.

Similarly, recruiters and employers will be required to specify the number of members of a family a maid will have to work for, subject to a prescribed maximum.

Besides Oman, India has signed bilateral MoUs with the UAE and Kuwait. India has signed an additional protocol with Qatar to update the 1985 Agreement on the Regulation of the Employment of Indian Manpower signed in 1985. Similar agreements were being negotiated with Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

In some of the existing bilateral agreements, employers are required to furnish a bank guarantee at the time of recruiting a housemaid so that that amount could be used for facilitating the maid to return to India if her employer breaches the contract. Some other stipulations are that salaries should preferably be paid into a bank account, documents should be translated into English or another language for the benefit of the maids, and facilities such as leaves and holidays should be indicated at the time of recruitment.