The increasingly shrill diplomatic row between India and the United States over criminal charges levelled against an Indian diplomat for alleged visa fraud involving her maid will probably cool down in the coming days.

The US-India relationship will survive. Fences will be mended. Indian anger and outrage at the treatment of their diplomat, Devyani Khobragade, will wear off.

Ms Khobragade may be an exemplary employer. But many millions of her counterparts in India, Pakistan and other Asian, Middle Eastern and African countries are certainly not.As such, the case in New York should be a wake-up call to an international community which has ignored the plight of domestic workers for far too long.

As anyone who has grown up in Asia, the Middle East and other “emerging” regions knows only too well: domestic workers are at best invisible to their employers. Much too often they are under-paid, mistreated and abused.

As Preet Bharara, the Manhattan US attorney who launched the prosecution against Ms Khobargade has pointed out, outrage in India over the alleged treatment of the Indian diplomat has not been matched by anger at the alleged treatment of the Indian victim and her spouse.

Bharara — also born in India — makes a good point. Asian, African and Middle Eastern governments and employers should be squirming in discomfort.

But they are not. Governments are more than happy to receive the remittances sent home by their workers — including domestic workers. In many cases, such money is more important for growth and development than official development assistance from wealthy to poor countries.

Very few countries, however, stand up for their workers when they are mistreated abroad, especially when those engaging in allegedly abusive behaviour are also their citizens, albeit privileged ones.

Look around and it is clear: domestic workers are among the most vulnerable category of workers worldwide.

Their exact numbers are not known but international experts say up to 100 million people, many of them children, work in private homes. An estimated 83 per cent of domestic workers are women.

“They work for private households, often without clear terms of employment, unregistered in any book, and excluded from the scope of labour legislation,” says the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Many face “deplorable working conditions, labour exploitation, and abuses of human rights”, says the ILO. A Domestic Workers’ Convention was adopted in 2011 — but implementation remains a challenge.

The Indian case is just the latest in a series of shocking reports on the exploitation, forced labour and abuse of domestic workers.

In Britain, a group of domestic workers is stepping up demands for the British government to provide new visa laws for 16,000 domestic workers thought to be at serious risk of exploitation and abuse.

“Justice for Domestic Workers” is campaigning to repeal controversial visa laws which tie domestic workers visas to their employers.

”The current system licences more employers to abuse, exploit and enslave domestic workers,” the organisation’s founder Marissa Begonia recently told a British newspaper.

Speaking in the wake of recent revelations that three women had been apparently kept in forced servitude for 30 years in south London, Begonia has warned that “tied visas” could be subjecting thousands more to a life of modern slavery.

Domestic workers — like workers more generally — are particularly vulnerable to abuse in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries. Experts say the kafala sponsorship system which ties the residency status of migrant workers to their employers, is intolerable.

Many countries are reluctant to sign up to global standards for domestic workers. According to an ILO study, only 10 per cent of domestic workers worldwide are covered by the same laws and legislation as other workers.

But the situation is changing. To date, 10 ILO member states (Bolivia, Germany, Guyana, Italy, Mauritius, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Philippines, South Africa and Uruguay) have ratified the Convention. Several others have started ratification procedures or have stated their intention of doing so.Since June 2011, interest in improving the living and working conditions of domestic workers has spread across the regions, the ILO claims. Legislative reforms regarding domestic workers have been completed in numerous countries, including Argentina, Bahrain, Brazil, Spain, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.

In several other countries, new regulatory and policy initiatives are being taken, including in Angola, Austria, Belgium, Chile, China, Finland, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Morocco, Namibia, Paraguay, United Arab Emirates and United States.

For countries that already have adopted reforms, the next and tougher challenge is to put in place adequate institutions and to build capacities to effectively implement the new regulations and policies and measure the results generated.

The formalisation of employment, rights for domestic workers including freedom of association and collective bargaining and hours of work are still important challenges to be tackled with respect to domestic work.

Many of these demands may seem outrageous to the millions of employers, including many from Asia’s emerging middle classes, who rely on “servants” — including under-age ones — to cook and clean for them.

In an unequal world, domestic workers from under-privileged backgrounds will continue to work in the homes of the rich and powerful.

But they will want to do so with dignity and respect.

The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Brussels.