14 domestic helps tortured to death in four months

A total of 14 domestic helps, mostly children, were tortured to death while eight were severely tortured by their employers in the last four months in the country, said human rights activists yesterday.
Speaking at a press conference at Jaitya Press Club in the city, leaders of Network for Establishing the Rights of the Domestic Workers said employers often escape punishment due to absence of a stern law to protect rights of domestic helps.
The network demanded the government to formulate a law to protect rights of domestic helps and prevent oppression on them.
The labour ministry last year finalised “Domestic Worker Protection and Welfare Policy 2010” following continuous pressure from the network. But the government is yet to issue any written order to make the policy effective, they said.
Quoting a record of Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies (BILS), they said a total of 797 incidents of oppression on domestic helps took place in the last ten years, of which, 398 victims died due to severe torture.
More than 20 lakh people are working as domestic helps in the country, 80 percent of which are women and children, they said.
Though Child Rights Act 1974 prohibits appointing children as domestic helps or at any factory and termed it as a punishable offense, reality is different. So it is a must to make the policy effective, they added.
They said the government must play a positive role in formulating a document on “Decent work for domestic workers” at International Labour Organization convention in June this year.
Their other demands include ensuring security, education, training, wage and fixed working hours for domestic helps and initiating social security and rationing system for them. They also called to punish employers who torture and kill domestic helps and provide legal support from the government to victims.
The conference participants later formed a human chain in front of Jatiya Press Club to realise the demands.
Dr Wajedul Islam Khan, coordinator of Sramik Karmachari Oikyo Parishad; Shirin Akhter, president of Karmojibi Nari; Mohammad Zafrul Hasan, joint secretary general of BILS; and Sultan Uddin Ahammad, the network coordinator, also spoke.