- This event is over. However, time travel possible through our Audio & Video! See upcoming events
Her Labour, Her Law
On the Lives of Domestic Workers in Karnataka
Speakers
This session is in English and Kannada.
Domestic work keeps the country running. But the women who make it possible, often after tending to their own homes first, have no contracts, no fixed hours, and no legal protection.
The proposed Domestic Workers Bill in Karnataka aims to regulate the industry, bringing in protections enjoyed by employees in the formal sector. This panel examines what the Bill actually means: for the women it seeks to protect, for the households that depend on them, and for a labour movement that has long treated domestic work as an afterthought.
A Q&A with the audience will follow.
This event is a part of our programming to celebrate International Women’s Day. Music, theatre, and conversation: by women, for everyone.
Speakers
Geetha Menon
Geetha Menon has spent three decades working with women in India’s informal economy, helping them organise and find their voices. As co-founder of Stree Jagruti Samiti and Joint Secretary of the Domestic Workers Rights Union, her work spans domestic violence, sexual harassment, trafficking, and caste-based oppression: all the ways, as she would put it, that women are kept out of public life. She has served on several government boards and the POSH committee on workplace sexual harassment, and is the recipient of the Nirbhaya Award and the Citizen Individual of the Year award by Namma Bengaluru.
Vinay K Sreenivasa
Vinay K Sreenivasa is an advocate and member of the Alternative Law Forum, where he works on constitutional literacy, urban governance, and the protection of informal sector livelihoods. A former computer science engineer, he designs and conducts legal workshops in Kannada and English, and his work moves between research, writing, and direct community engagement.
Gayatri
Gayatri is the Treasurer of Domestic Workers Rights Union and has been actively working with migrant domestic workers. She is from Somasundarapalya, HSR.
Pushpa
Pushpa is the active President of Domestic Workers Rights Union from Ragigudda, JP Nagar.
