Title: Girl child labour in domestic services: are they really empowered?

Authors: Siddhartha Sarkar

Addresses: Asian School of Management and Technology; A.C. College of Commerce, 250 Pandapara Colony, Jalpaiguri 735101, West Bengal, India

Abstract: Domestic workers are not generally considered as employees, their work is underestimated, and their working conditions remain, in quintessence, unfettered. Among the major groups of child workers are those who are working as domestics in the households of people other than their own families. However, when a child is recruited in a household not closely related to his or her family for the purpose of giving that household the benefit of her or his domestic labour, this is no longer |upbringing| but |employment|. This study delves into exploitation of girl child labour in paid domestic services in North Eastern region – their employment and working environment and how they coalesce paid work with other responsibilities.

Keywords: domestic work; girls; female child labour; rural livelihoods; empowerment; sexual harassment; India; domestic services; child workers; domestics; exploitation; working environment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJEED.2011.040409

International Journal of Education Economics and Development, 2011 Vol.2 No.2, pp.156 - 167

Published online: 11 Oct 2014 *

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