Adviser for the labour and employment ministry, retired brigadier general M Sakhawat Hossain, said on Sunday that he would take an initiative to introduce a complaint system for the domestic helps under the ministry.
Referring to the national helpline 999, he said that he would discuss the matter with the home affairs adviser in this regard.
He said these while attending a policy dialogue titled 鈥楨xpectations for a discrimination-free Bangladesh: protection and development of life standards of domestic helps鈥�.
Campaign for Popular Education organised the dialogue at the Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific auditorium in the capital with the support of Oxfam in Bangladesh.聽
At the dialogue, the government officials and rights activists said that the rights of the domestic helps should be ensured through laws and their profession should be recognised.
People in Bangladesh should also change their mentalities towards the domestic helps, they added.
Adviser Sakhawat Hossain said that he agreed with the demands and that the domestic helps must get minimum protection.
Sharmeen S Murshid, adviser to the ministries of women and children affairs and social welfare, at the same programme also said that she would try to introduce a safety net programme for the domestic helps.
Campaign for Popular Education executive director Rasheda K Choudhury said that the government could not ensure the safety of women and children anywhere including in the educational institutions, on roads and in workplaces.
Amena Akhtar, a domestic help, said that she had a three-year-old daughter but she could not take her to houses where she worked due to objection from the employers.
鈥楳y daughter is currently in my village home and it is difficult for me to concentrate on work,鈥� Amena said.
Several other domestic helps also demanded government support for identity cards for their profession and their children鈥檚 education and child care.
Shireen Parveen Haque, head of the Women Affairs Reform Commission and executive council member of Naripokkho, said that day care centre facilities were necessary for domestic helps.
She also demanded the recognition of their profession, awareness over social protection programmes, insurance and association for them.
Syed Sultanuddin Ahmed, head of the Labour Reform Commission and Bangladesh Institute of Labour Studies executive director, said that with the present mandates of the ministries, policies, monitoring cells and laws it was possible to improve the condition of the domestic helps in the country.
Bangladesh Mahila Parishad president Fauzia Moslem demanded a designated authority for domestic helps to look after their issues and orientation for the recruiters of the domestic helps.
The dialogue was attended, among others, by the labour and employment ministry secretary AHM Shafiquzzaman, Bureau of Non-Formal Education director Fahmida Begum, Oxfam in Bangladesh representative Mahmuda Sultana, World Bank adviser ABM Khorshed Alam and Informal Sector Industry Skills Council chairperson Mirza Nurul Ghani Shovon.
