 Summary of this article
- A platform providing domestic help services across nine cities in the country as well as in foreign nations has inserted a tab—‘blacklisted maids’—on its website
- Putting names and faces of “blacklisted maids”, along with unverified information about the “crimes” committed by them, amounts to criminalisation of domestic workers, say experts
- Domestic workers’ unions and labour rights experts have demanded legal action against the platform that is “violating the fundamental constitutional right of privacy of domestic workers”
The website opens to the image of a woman and a customer testimonial, satisfied with the service provided by the platform. The tagline on the website says: “The new way to hire a trusted maid”.
The platform provides ‘housemaids’, cooks, babysitters and senior citizen care across Mumbai and Pune, Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Surat, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai, as well as in cities across the world like Dubai, Singapore, London and Australia. It claims to have a “database of five lakh maids and growing” and promises a “stringent verification process”.
Nothing unusual so far. This is how most platforms that help you in hiring a domestic worker look. This one is different, in a problematic way.
A tab on the website takes you to a section called “blacklisted maids”. The disclaimer says: “This is a crowd source information of maids who are blacklisted by employers. They are blacklisted for some reason like theft/misbehaviour/ salary advance and abscond etc.” The disclaimer adds:
"This information has been independently provided by employers who might not have hired a maid through Bookmybai. This information is not verified by Bookmybai. It is purely for information purpose so that you do not end up hiring the same maid who has done some sort of crime at someone else's home according to the employer. It is also possible that the employer has put false accusation on the maid and has blacklisted her. Please use your own discretion and decision”.
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Once you scroll down, there are close-up images of eight women and one man—all “blacklisted”—along with their names and locations, their “crimes”, along with testimonials from customers elaborating on their crimes and warning others not to hire them. Incidentally, none of the profiles mentions any criminal case registered against them.
A background search led us to one of the “blacklisted” maids—Supriya (name changed), who was associated with the platform and was hired by a household in Borivali, a Mumbai suburb. “It was a posh society. My employer used to check my bag initially, but after two weeks, she stopped. However, the security person at the gate would check my bag thoroughly while entering the building and while leaving.
It was humiliating, but I desperately needed the job so I could not say anything,” she says. She added that later, when she wanted to discontinue the job and her association with the platform, she approached the team multiple times, requesting them to discontinue her service. Instead, they “blacklisted” her. Her photos and details are still visible on the website. Supriya shared the communication that she had with the platform’s team management.
Breach of privacy is not the only violation committed by the online platform. The company’s app also criminalises them. Under the “verify my worker” section in the app appears a graphic, which says: “3 Out of 10 maids have done some form of crime.”
The company, Nano Jobs Consultants Private Limited, that runs Bookmybai, has not provided any data or evidence to back this claim. Two news stories, detailing two separate instances of thefts committed by domestic helps in Delhi and Bengaluru, are inserted in the graphic. However, the stories do not provide any data to back the claim made by the graphic that “three out of 10 maids have done some form of crime”.
The graphic is now being widely circulated among civil societies, domestic workers’ unions, labour rights workers and academics. The Domestic Workers Rights Union has shared the issue of criminalisation of domestic workers with various WhatsApp groups. These groups are now demanding immediate legal action against the company.
The experts are of the view that when the National Crime Records Bureau(NCRB) does not provide any data pertaining to ‘crimes committed by maids’ and there are no other verified, evaluated data sets in the country that enlist such crimes, a private platform has no right make such claims.
“Making blatant statements about domestic workers’ assumed ‘crimes’ without any data and evidence is outrageous and amounts to criminalisation and defamation of workers. No evidence has been provided by the platform that these “blacklisted” maids have committed any crime or have been convicted,” says Gayatri Singh, a senior lawyer, who has represented various labour cases. “Immediate legal action should be taken against the platform that is violating the fundamental constitutional right of privacy of domestic workers. It exposes them to extreme vulnerability that impacts their lives and employment prospects,” she adds.
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