The Impact Of COVID-19 Pandemic On Domestic Workers In India

India reported its first COVID-19 case in January’2020, and it started increasing its pace tremendously from March onwards. It left the entire country scared and in denial. It led to people having a major financial crisis, let alone the health problems that further led to emotional and mental health deterioration. It also led to many people losing jobs and coming on the streets with significantly fewer savings. Thousands have already died in the country due to the pandemic. The worst hit people in maintaining a living were the country's lower class, including domestic helpers, vendors, migrants, etc.

India’s urban areas have followed the trend of seeking help from domestic helpers for a very long time, and to imagine life without them has become very difficult these days. The COVID-19 pandemic led to a country wide lockdown in March and the lives of these helpers have been very miserable since then. The lockdown especially affected women working in the domestic sector. I interviewed two women working at my house who help in day to day domestic works like washing utensils, clothes and cleaning. Both the women explained how badly they suffered due to this pandemic.

The following are a few problems that they discussed.

• No savings: Most domestic workers faced the issue of no savings since they did not have any work for almost six months. The workers usually earned very little money due to which they could hardly save anything, which led to major financial issues to survive during the pandemic. In a survey collected from 8 states, 30% of helpers mentioned that they didn’t have enough money to survive.

• Starvation: The women helping in my house mentioned that there were days when they had to face starvation due to lack of money and food supplies. The government did provide some amount of food, but that was not enough. In a survey collected from 8 states, 38% of helpers stated that they faced the problem of food supply as it was limited. They had to borrow money from their neighbors and relatives to get a little food and now they’re in debt.

• Education of children: The education of the children of house helpers has been tremendously affected. The women mentioned that they do not have any smartphones to provide online education for their children, and the education has come to a halt.

In addition to these challenges, they have often encountered difficulties paying monthly rent because a few people paid them and a few did not. Sleeplessness due to constant worry about when the jobs will resume again caused their mental well-being to be compromised.

The domestic helpers in India are one of the worst hit people and have faced a lot due to their economically weak background. A lot of us might have already helped these people during the tough time, but the least we can still do is help them financially if at all we can or at least talk things out with them so it can give them emotional and mental support and their mental health remains a little better.