Building a Wider
Horizon With Labour
Sangita Pawar, 26, works as a part-time domestic help in three middle-class homes in Navi Mumbai. She visits these homes twice a day and her work involves cleaning, dusting and washing clothes and utensils. Many times, she does additional work for her employers without any extra payment. Pawar gets about Rs5,000 (Dh268) from each household. “It is definitely better than what I would have earned in my village but then I hardly get any rest and I work on most of the festivals. Didi [the woman of the house] shouts if I take one extra day off,” says Pawar. She gets two days off in a month. Pawar and her three children are mostly dependent on her income since her husband is an alcoholic and wastes away most of his earnings.
