‘I left two months ago, but they refuse to pay me my dues,’ says a woman sitting in a one-room office in a densely crowded area in New Delhi. She swept and mopped a two-bedroom apartment for her former employers, for which they paid her $14 a month. Or, at least, they were supposed to.
A young woman diligently writes down the complaint. ‘Because this woman is a part-time domestic worker, she can at least come to us,’ says Kalai Selvi, the regional co-ordinator of the National Domestic Workers Association in New Delhi. ‘Full-time domestic workers often don’t receive any money, and they are not allowed to leave.’
