Sister Christin Mary is a member of the Missionary Sisters of the Im-maculate Heart of Mary, also known as ICM Sisters.
Based in the western Indian city of Mumbai, Mary coordinates the National Domestic Workers’ Movement, which has been championing the rights of domestic workers, children in domestic work, and migrant domestic workers since 1985. Today, its work is spread across 17 states of India, engaging nearly 200,000 domestic workers in major cities, towns and villages.
The movement was set up by Belgian Sister Jeanne Devos, also of the ICM Sisters, who spent several years as a missionary in India. She was concerned about the plight of Indian domestic workers who were exploited and whose work was undervalued.
Mary shared with Global Sisters Report about her work with the movement. She said the movement has emerged as a ray of hope for thousands of children who were deprived of their childhood and education, rehabilitating and educating them to enter mainstream society. The movement, she said, has set the tone for “breaking the slavery of silence.”
“Our journey is a road less trave-led,” the 47-year-old nun said. She expressed some of major hardships “Slow response from the govern-ments to protect the rights of workers and the exclusion of workers from the purview of labour laws even after constant lobbying efforts are some of them. Failure of the government to allocate a budget for the welfare board has created difficulties for the domestic workers to avail the social protection schemes on time. Domestic workers also report unfair dismissal when they ask for better wages and working conditions.” About her mitivations she said:
“When I was a student in a convent school in the southern Indian State of Tamil Nadu, I saw religious sisters helping the poor children who couldn’t afford to pay their fees and buy books. In my student days, I heard about the plights of child workers who were forced to sacrifice their childhoods to support their starving families. I used to be disturbed about those children, whose dreams were nipped in the bud. My desire to serve the underprivileged children and women motivated me to become a nun in 2001.”