The National Domestic Worker Protection and Welfare Policy, 2010 (Draft)
wants to vest the duty to fix the amount payable to a domestic worker in case of an
accident, in the registering authority. This body as envisaged in this draft policy would
engage elected local politicians, local elites, and field level bureaucrats. It is natural to
apprehend that such a body would tend to favour the privileged (employers) over the
disadvantaged (domestic workers).93 Formal judicial procedure may also be too costly for
child domestic workers or even adult domestic workers to access. Thus, as a middle
ground, a sort of quasi-judicial body consisting of retired judicial officers can be put in
place to adjudicate compensation or other civil disputes between the parties.
The members of such quasi-judicial body may be paid honorarium by the
Government. In order to minimise costs, it should be provided that neither party would be
allowed to appoint lawyers for presenting their cases. For bringing any claim to this
quasi-judicial body, the domestic workers should not be required to pay any fee but the
employers may be required to pay a certain fee or at least deposit a refundable fee (to be
forfeited in case of an unsuccessful claim).94 Unless an award of this quasi-judicial body
exceeds a certain amount of money (say half a million Bangladeshi taka), the award
rendered by it should be treated as final and non-appealable. If these measures can be
taken, the inherent inequality faced by domestic workers in vindicating any claim against
their employers can be significantly reduced, if not removed. This mechanism should also
be able to dispense with the tardiness and expensiveness for which civil courts in
Bangladesh are generally considered as an unsuitable forum for workers.95
93
Ara, above note 9, at 25.
94
One may argue that such a system would be discriminatory however, for achieving special purposes,
laws may put in place such separate treatments for parties, see for example, Section 41 of the Money Loan
Court Act, 2003 [Act No. 8 of 2003] requires that for preferring an appeal against a judgement or order of
the Money Loan Court, a financial institution would not have not make any deposit but anyone else
preferring an appeal would have to make a certain deposit. In fact, because of the substantial mismatch in
wealth and resources between a domestic worker and the employer, the provision suggested here would
appear to be a much even-handed one than is the case in Money Loan Court Act.
95
Ahmed, above note 48, at 13-14.
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