Some years ago, a family living near to my house who also is a distant friend was in trouble. The Madame of the house was invited for questioning at NAPTIP (National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons) office in Ikeja for abusing and beating her domestic help (a young girl of about 11yrs) to near death. I was called upon by the woman to sign as a surety for her bail as investigation continued. When I learnt what had happened in detail. I hesitated. The young girl was also detained at the same place till her biological mother, who was invited from the village to Lagos could arrive. Incidentally the mother of the little girl was a cousin to the woman who has abused the girl and had given her daughter so that she could be helped to go to school in the city.
The offence of the girl that earned her a near death experience was that she allowed the soup which the woman had prepared with ‘huge amount of money’ to sour and that she has not been obedient in waking up at an exact given time of 5am to prepare the madam’s children (some are almost the age of the girl) to school. It was a neighbour who lives next to the woman’s apartment and who has severally witnessed serial abuse of the young girl by the Madame, that reported the matter to NAPTIP.
When the mother of the girl arrived, she could not believe what has happened to her own daughter. The end of the story was that she picked her daughter and headed back to the village saying it is better to die in poverty than see this sort of thing again. She could not believe a relative of hers could be so callous and wicked. There is no serious law in Nigeria that deals strictly on domestic workers. So people get away with several abuses. Children are rampantly taken into slavery in the name of domestic help.
Domestic helpers perform a variety of household services for an individual or a family, from providing care for children and elderly dependents to housekeeping, including cleaning and household maintenance. Other responsibilities may include, washing the cars, cooking, laundry and ironing, shopping for food and other errands. So many researches has been done on domestic help and still more to be said. The day one recognizes the important and the value of the services they provide is when they travel out of the home to attend personal matters for a week or more. In the first few days there seem to be a confusion on household ‘to-do’ list and both parents, and the children engage in serious chores adjustment.
Pros and Cons
There are several stories around domestic help; from driver, security guard, to housemaid or boy, who often work as live-in domestics. May be you have also witnessed one in your household or you are the one who suffered in hands of ‘Oga’ or Madame some year back or are still suffering.
The other side of the coin is that some domestic servants are also bad. Some have been used either by external forces or bad sprits, or willful wickedness to wreak havoc to peaceful homes.
A friend of mine told me recently that since they brought in the young girl from the village to help them take care of their little children, they have been in and out of the hospital. Accusing fingers are pointed at the housemaid. Some have been accused on witchcraft and being in marine occult especially the young girls or ladies among them.
And so confusion, prejudice and rash judgement have become the baseline of assessment in this matter. But every family should be treated on its own merit for no two families are the same. I know of a family who has been uplifted both financially and spiritually because a certain person who works as a live-in domestic has stepped into the home. We should also be mindful of the fact that life is a chain and whatever one does in the past and present follows one to the future.
It is also advice-able that one does a due diligence before taking someone to live with you even when it is from a relative. Above all, one must pray and seek counsel when necessary when making such decision. If you do not need domestic help why go for one? If you need and can’t afford, don’t bother either. Domestic helps also have reduced many parents as lazy ducks because the helper now does everything the woman or the man would have done ordinarily. Some use them as status symbol to measure up. This shouldn’t be so.
Discrimination:
One area that comes vividly to heart is finding the difference between your children and the domestic help. When you assist to train your live-in domestic both in academics or good moral, you will benefit more.
For example, if you send your children to private school and the helper to the public school, the logic is that they will teach your children what they learnt from public school.
So many parents who discriminate their children from the domestic help in household living pay higher price in the long run. One can always differentiate between a nice Christmas clothes for the children (bought from designers’ boutique in Lagos Island or a shopping mall) and that of the domestic help (picked from Aswani market, Okirika Mall or Oshodi bend-down boutique).
Abuse.
Abuse (either verbal or physical) of a live- domestic assistant have a network of consequences, either positive or negative. A security guard in revenge some time ago, organized with few accomplice and evacuated her madam’s property including expensive jewelries when she travelled out of the country.
The reason the arrested security guard gave was that the woman owes him some months of unpaid salary, and often was sarcastic to him when he complains. Some years ago, a video went viral where a domestic help was beating a year-old baby entrusted to her care -when her employers had already gone to work. She was cut in action by the surveillance camera. A friend recently told me that his security man has been caught on camera selling the fuel -he usually buys for house generating sets- to okada riders in the neighbourhood.
When the guard was confronted, he first wanted to deny but the man showed him the video and he apologized with a plea that he was broke and had no money to eat. (apparently he has not been paid). But how many people that have domestic help can afford a surveillance camera? So a whole lot are done behind closed doors when the employer is not around. Children learn abusive language from people the live with.
Appreciation
There are several ways of showing appreciate for the service rendered by your domestic help. To say ‘thank you’ with your mouth. Example: ‘Tope, I want to say thank you for all the services you have been rending to this family, God will bless you.’ So this Christmas, one of our firm gift to the domestic help is appreciation not abuse. Buy them little gifts and wind down the barrage of the foul language used on them. They are humans and have emotions like you (women seem to be the frequent culprits on this one). How can you tell your domestic help that he or she is good for nothing and expect to get a premium service? Secondly, the spirit of Christmas is a spirit of forgiveness, when God forgave humanity by sending his only son to world to redeem it.
One of the heaviest load one can carry in this life is the load of un-forgiveness. So letting go of whatever you have experienced from your domestic help, will be a rewarding gift for him or her this holy season of Christmas.
