Humanity towards Domestic Helpers

Humanity is nothing but the ability to love and show compassion towards others. To be respected is what we aspire, and the same is supposed to be done for others from our side, keeping aside religion, caste, creed and colour. It's good to see everyone talking and raising their voice for migrant workers, as this topic was never a social taboo unlike sex, mensuration, dowry, rape etc. Many show respect towards them and deal with dignity. But the question here is "What about the remaining who failed to understand humanity????"

I see and hear people talking about the suffering of migrant workers because of the current pandemic situation. It is heart-breaking to see the migrant's homeless and walking miles with their families without proper food & amenities. Images and videos of them are trending on Social and News Medias. People have started questioning their safety and rights. It's good to see people helping them in the best possible ways and fighting for them. But migrant workers existed with us before this pandemic and many working as a domestic help at our homes. Did everyone treat them right then???

Here I am talking about the house help we hire to make our personal life easy. I always wanted to speak about this topic after looking at the discrimination they go through at their workplace but never had the courage. In this sensitive world surrounded by weak and complicated relationships, we need to think twice before telling the truth. Maybe through this blog, I can speak my mind and contribute a bit to my society.

We become financially independent by working as an employee for an organization or owning a business which becomes our source of income. Similarly, when someone works at our resident and gets paid for their job, we should treat them as an employee and our home as a workplace. All kind of work needs to be respected, as some have the privilege to choose their work, and few are bound to do it for survival. May be mediocre thinking and arrogance can make them look inferior else nature has never discriminated the human race; it's only about our acceptance.

The topic of 'House Help' is underrated as people take it for granted. We hire domestic help in our personal life because we are capable enough to pay for our household work or incapable of doing it. Both these scenarios are acceptable as long as we treat them good. But many a time they go through a lot at their workplace like facing discrimination, not treated respectfully, overloaded with work etc. We barely see them fighting for their rights or self-respect because they fear of losing their job, and they very well know the consequences. A few times, seeing behaviour towards maids or listening to their stories make me feel anguish and guilty at the same time for not raising my voice. I have heard stories like when something goes missing at home without the benefit of the doubt servants are accused of doing it or called out for the same. Stories of domestic workers who go through exploitation, rude behaviour, harassment etc. are less discussed in public or covered by media.

The only expectation is to treat them in the same manner how we want our workplace to do with us. Please treat house help with respect and dignity, provide them with a positive & friendly environment and help them when in need. As they are our employee and we hire domestic help to make our lives easy. In most of the Indian houses due to generation gap, our above generation mindsets get stuck to what they have learned or seen. Because of that mindset, domestic helpers face a lot of problems like racism, discrimination, untouchable etc. It is our responsibility to educate them on few topics like work culture, drawbacks of unprogressive thoughts, the right way to keep the tradition alive simultaneously leaving behind conservative thinking regarding religion & caste.

The best solution to deal with these problems and make our domestic & migrant workers life safe and secured is getting them all under one roof. It can be any government or private organization, recruiting them all and taking care of their requirements. They should go through professional training based on individual expertise. Then the company can outsource them to the different workplace with proper background verification of the person who is hiring a housekeeper. By this, they will work for one organization, and when in a problem, feel safe to raise their voice. An organization always follows the same procedure for hiring any employee, so it's high time we do the same for Domestic Workers. In the end, we all are human and working for our survival, so everyone deserves respect for their job and a safe workplace.

Image Courtesy: @kreeytiv_optics