97% of both live-in and live-out domestic workers are women with an estimated 26% under 18. Many are migrants from rural areas from poor households and lack skills, training and access to secure working conditions, standardized wages, benefits and services.

They are often exposed to various forms of abuse with limited access to recourse. Their main work includes house cleaning, dish washing, clothes washing and taking care o f children and the elderly.

Within 164 tea gardens (plantations) in Bangladesh there are an estimated 145,000 workers (75% women). They are mainly descendants of immigrants who came from different parts of India during the colonial period. The workers are poor receiving a lower income than their counterparts in India.

Due to their circumstance of living in the plantations their access to government provided services such as education, is limited as services such as housing, safe water, sanitation, medical and educational facilities are provided by the tea garden authorities.

Women working in the informal sector such as domestic and home-based workers or who are unrecognised or marginalised such as women working in fisheries and tea gardens, face multiple barriers and gender-based discrimination in the home, community and within their work places and livelihoods. This intersectionality is based on established social and cultural attitudes and norms that define the role and status of women.

Although there is widespread community belief that women should be allowed to work to earn a living there is also a widespread expectation that they should still undertake all household and care work as well, and for many their income is passed on to their husbands who decide how it will be used. Exposure to violence is experienced in all of these spheres as is the double burden of household care roles and their role within the workplace.