Sir
Earlier this week, we ‘celebrated’  International Women’s Day. Everywhere,  on social media and the other platforms,  people were  discussing the achievements and  problems of  women.

Through your news website I would like to turn people’s attention on those women who work as  domestic help or ‘maids’. They have become very important helpers for middle class or the upper middle class people.

These domestic workers are the ones who ensure smooth flow of work in the house and a day without them makes the home owners burn their blood in tension.
As Bihar has majority of poor illiterate people. Here  about 75% of illiterate women work as  domestic workers; they earn their living by this profession. Some of those women are the sole earning member in their family.
Surely, government keeps coming up with many schemes and laws for the empowerment of women. Various other NGOs are also working for the women but till date no political party or has raised the cause or given  any help for the domestic workers.
Ms Reena Devi, a resident of Patliputra is a domestic worker by profession. She told me  ‘I earn total of Rs 1200 in the month after working at two places twice a day. My salary is not being raised. It is very difficult to manage the house on my salary’.
Ms Kiran, a domestic worker said, ‘All the women working as domestic worker have the same problem; we are not paid according to our work. Even though we work for years at a particular place, our work load is increased, but not our payment. And because of our hand to mouth condition we cannot risk leaving the job, but the increasing prices in market are making holes in our pockets’.
After hearing them, it forced me to think that actually this is true. We always try to get a person with the lowest salary for our domestic help but we forget to think about them and their needs. They make our lives easy by giving their time and we always try to exploit them.
So, this is the other area where we need to pay attention.

Those people who can afford to keep domestic workers earn enough either in government or private jobs according to the changing economic conditions. People need to think about their domestic help too and at least raise their salary or pay them according to their work.

Yours truly
Seema Kumari, BMC 3rd year, St. Xavier’s College of Management and Technology, Digha Patna

[The opinions expressed in Vox-Pop are entirely those of the writers and do not necessarily  reflect Newsnet One Editorial Policy]

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