With the arrest of a senior executive of a multinational firm for battering her maid in her upmarket South Delhi home in Vasant Kunj, the focus is back once again on the need to bring employers of domestic help under some kind of regulation.

The incident also highlights the yawning gaps in the yet-to-be-passed legislation governing the placement of domestic workers. The draft Delhi Private Placement Agencies (Regulation) Bill has provisions for the functioning of placement agencies and background check on domestic workers. However, it stays silent on the rights of domestic workers and on penalising employers found violating these rights. The Vasant Kunj episode, experts say, is a classic example that proves that the government should tighten the noose around employers.

There has been no movement on the Bill since August 2012 when the Delhi government invited suggestions and objections to it.

Avinash Singh, program coordinator with the NGO Save The Children, who made his reservations clear about the draft Bill when it was made public, told Firstpost. “The Bill is loaded heavily with clauses relating to the running of a placement agency. There is no mention of a grievance redress mechanism or penalizing the employer when the rights of the worker are violated.”

According to Shakti Vahini, the organisation that rescued the domestic worker from Vasant Kunj this week, the absence of any protection to workers will result in their exploitation by the placement agency and employers.

“There is no mechanism set up in the Bill whereby domestic workers can lodge a complaint of sexual harassment / sexual assault by placement agents. This is also important because as per the Draft Bill, the placement agency will have complete control over the domestic worker and at every stage there will be exploitation which is already rampant. The worst part of the Bill that has been shabbily drafted is that it tends to legalise the large-scale trafficking of women and children from the source areas by providing legal sanctity to placement agencies who are involved in thousands of missing children (cases) across the country,” said a statement issued by the NGO criticising the draft Bill.

As per the draft legislation, individuals or private agencies will require a government licence to provide private domestic workers. The licences will be issued for a period of five years and will be subject to renewal.

No agency or individual can deal with a minor as domestic worker, according to the Bill.

Within five days of the placement of a worker, the placement agency must inform the concerned state government authority about the same, according to the draft law.

A study titled ‘Domestic workers: conditions, rights and responsibilities’ done by Jagori,  a Delhi-based organisation, concluded that organisations and the government will have to involve employers in this discussion to make them aware of the rights of domestic workers. “Given the long tradition of social inequality in this relationship, a combined effort by the state and workers’ organisations can be the first step in changing the nature of domestic work from that of class, hierarchy, gender and caste to a professional contract between domestic workers and their employers,” it said.

In the absence of a law to safeguard the rights of domestic workers, the employer can be booked under laws preventing child labour if a child below 14 years is employed as domestic help. For a child between 14 and 18 years of age, the Juvenile Justice Act comes into play. For crimes in which the domestic help is an adult, various sections of the Indian Penal Code are invoked.

Meena Patel, convener of Domestic Workers Rights Campaign, said that despite the current laws, a specific legislation for domestic workers is needed as the work, work force and work conditions are different from other industries.