Despair on the home front
Sunday, 11 July 2010
Fauzia Zebun
There is a real crisis on the home-front specially of working mothers, and this has developed primarily on account of the RMG sector. Almost all potential housemaids these days would rather work in a factory, and be 'free', even though they get no food or board, and wages and working conditions are not all that good for most. Even then, when the option is there, they prefer not to slog away in other people's homes 'like slaves', some were heard saying ! Enlightened people may agree that these garment girls' 'no' to home jobs is a sure sign of social progress but there is no denying that this is putting the average housewife in a real soup, stressed-out as she is with the daily demands of family life and the culture of non-cooperation, mostly from male members of the household, with respect to sharing the drudgery !
The time has come to change our lifestyles and for the menfolk to start becoming pro-active and self-reliant with respect to the mundane chores that keeps family and social life going. If our family members washed their own clothes and plates, cleaned their own toilets and rooms, they would cease taking household help 'for granted' anymore. High time we started applying the classic labour principle of 'eight hours for work, eight for sleep and eight to do as you will,' to those who come to lessen the burden of housework. This humane principle should be inculcated in the young as early as possible, and the older members of the family weaned out of their dependent habits, sooner rather than later.
Much has changed since the International Labour Organisation sought to establish universally applicable labour rules, regulations and laws that all signatories, which include Bangladesh, are obliged to follow. Unfortunately, nothing as yet applies to homeworkers who are often treated callously regardless of what the constitution, and religion, has to say about upholding every person's human dignity. There is scope for both the government and the non-government sectors to start investing in the proper training of domestic labour and give them the value they deserve. High time we became civilized.
There is a real crisis on the home-front specially of working mothers, and this has developed primarily on account of the RMG sector. Almost all potential housemaids these days would rather work in a factory, and be 'free', even though they get no food or board, and wages and working conditions are not all that good for most. Even then, when the option is there, they prefer not to slog away in other people's homes 'like slaves', some were heard saying ! Enlightened people may agree that these garment girls' 'no' to home jobs is a sure sign of social progress but there is no denying that this is putting the average housewife in a real soup, stressed-out as she is with the daily demands of family life and the culture of non-cooperation, mostly from male members of the household, with respect to sharing the drudgery !
The time has come to change our lifestyles and for the menfolk to start becoming pro-active and self-reliant with respect to the mundane chores that keeps family and social life going. If our family members washed their own clothes and plates, cleaned their own toilets and rooms, they would cease taking household help 'for granted' anymore. High time we started applying the classic labour principle of 'eight hours for work, eight for sleep and eight to do as you will,' to those who come to lessen the burden of housework. This humane principle should be inculcated in the young as early as possible, and the older members of the family weaned out of their dependent habits, sooner rather than later.
Much has changed since the International Labour Organisation sought to establish universally applicable labour rules, regulations and laws that all signatories, which include Bangladesh, are obliged to follow. Unfortunately, nothing as yet applies to homeworkers who are often treated callously regardless of what the constitution, and religion, has to say about upholding every person's human dignity. There is scope for both the government and the non-government sectors to start investing in the proper training of domestic labour and give them the value they deserve. High time we became civilized.