REGULATORY vacuum and enforcement failure in domestic household services leave both employers and workers unprotected, but not on equal terms. The High Court’s directing the government to explain its failure to implement a mandatory registration and regulatory system for such workers under the Domestic Servants Registration Ordinance 1961 brings the issue back in focus. The court on April 19 issued the directive when it heard a petition filed on the alleged murder of a mother and daughter by their domestic household service worker in December 2025. The petitioner says that the ordinance, which mandates the registration of workers, is in effect in certain police stations in Dhaka and allows the government to extend it to other areas through an official notification. The petition, therefore, seeks the court’s intervention in its implementation. Although the petitioner is largely focused on the security and protection of employers, the regulatory failure also raises concern about worker exploitation in an informal sector where employment is usually based on oral contracts. In an unequal setting, violence against domestic workers is reported more frequently and this issue should also be addressed with urgency.
The arrest of the Biman Bangladesh Airlines managing director and his wife over allegations of torturing an 11-year-old domestic worker in February has exposed the persistent lack of accountability for employers. The victim’s father allowed his daughter to work at the house of the accused as a caregiver because of financial hardship, based on an informal agreement that the accused would pay for her marriage. When the accused asked him to take his daughter home on January 31, he found her severely ill, bruised and battered. The limited legal protection available is frequently ignored, when the employers are from economically or politically powerful backgrounds. The Domestic Workers Protection and Welfare Policy 2015, meant to safeguard the worker rights, remained unimplemented because of successive governments’ negligence and the lack of will. The policy was expected to fill the vacuum and empower workers with legal entitlements and bring their employers under the purview of legal framework. It requires the enlistment of workers, mandatory permission from guardians for appointing children below 12 years as domestic helps, timely payment and leave with pay, when needed. The interim government also considered developing a mechanism to resolve domestic worker’s complaints. But, this did not happen.
It is time the government, instead of taking isolated actions on court orders or legislation, systematically addressed the legal vacuum in the informal employment of domestic workers. Along the same lines, the government should take early steps to implement the national policy in this regard and consider amending the labour law to bring domestic labour under the legal purview.
