Belgian nun discusses plight of child domestic workers in India

Published: 2006-02-23

NEW YORK (CNS) -- They are called domestic workers, but many of them are better described as slaves. They are children who work in private households, they do arduous labor from before dawn until after dark, and they are vulnerable to abuse -- physical, emotional, sexual. Sister Jeanne Devos, a Belgian member of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary who has served in India for more than 40 years, has devoted herself to helping them and also women who are domestic workers. In 1985 she founded the National Domestic Workers Movement, based in Mumbai, to call attention to the appalling circumstances in which they are trapped and to work for change. A key part of her mission is to fight trafficking, the abduction or "buying" of children for domestic work. Sister Jeanne said trafficking agents often make false promises to poor families that a child sent into domestic work will receive care and education. Parents learn nothing of the actual conditions the children endure, and in reality, most child domestic workers are not sent to school.

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