Abuse of Domestic Staff in Africa: Nigeria - A Case Study

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Domestic servants are commonly referred to as maids, drivers, Laundry men/women, gardeners, cooks, carers, guards, stewards, etc. They take care of chores such as cooking, washing of clothes, cleaning of the house, caring for children, mowing the lawn, driving, etc. Most families in Nigeria hire the services of domestic servants because of their busy schedules, so that they can have someone to run the home, prepare meals and do the school runs while the household owners are at work during the day time. Domestic workers are on high demand and people are readily available to do this kind of work regardless of the inhumane treatment they experience, simply because Nigeria does not have a developed welfare state and these workers who work in private homes are not protected by the Nigerian law.

Many are marginalized and their rights trampled upon because they emerge from poverty stricken backgrounds and they are also extremely frightened to go home because they know they cannot afford 3 square meals a day or go to school. As a result of this, they continue to work as domestic workers under any conditions. Some are sexually abused, beaten and treated with so much disrespect as if they were lesser beings. Many of them do not get time off and are compelled to work long hours such as 12-19 hours a day, 365 days a year.

According to the Guardian, (2015) “an estimated 53 million people, mostly women are employed as domestic workers in private households around the world”, leaving them vulnerable to all kinds of abuses including a new kind of slavery. In addition to the adults that work as domestic workers, UNICEF, Nigeria, (2006) information sheet, found that 15 million children under the age of 14 work as domestic workers across Nigeria, resulting in them missing out on education.

International Domestic Workers Federation (IDWEF), (2014) reported some harrowing stories. A 12-year-old girl (Rosemary), from Otukpo in Benue State, that had completed primary school education at age ten, but her dream of getting further education was crushed by poverty. She had been told that her situation will change when she gets to the private home in Lagos. “I was told I will further my education, I will eat well and I will have a room to myself,” said Rosemary. “Now that dream of getting that education is shattered because I work from 5 am to 1 am” Seven years after she arrived in Lagos, Rosemary has joined the hoard of street hawkers on Dopemu Bridge. She abandoned the people she once worked for the last year over what she described as “maltreatment and abuse”.

For Agnes Dike, a house help from Umuekwule-Afugiri in Abia State, the tale was not so different. “I was told that I will just be like a child to my madam who will shower me with love and send me to school, because she specifically requested for a girl of my age who is smart enough to run errands. But I have been dehumanised by the same woman who says I am a witch after serving her family for five years.” Unlike Rosemary who has become a street hawker, Agnes makes a living as a factory worker in one of the artificial hair manufacturing companies in Ikeja, Lagos. At 16, she had never seen the four walls of a classroom.

Beatrice Adjadi, a Togolese who has been from one house to the other as a live-in-domestic servant in Lagos says “Life can be hard for a house help. We receive little or no pay at all at the end of the year. The only rest, in most cases, is when you follow your employer to the church on Sunday where they tend to behave normally to you. As a house help you rarely have your own privacy. I slept in the living room for a whole year, and in most cases, I was confounded to the kitchen during the day”.

The list is endless and unfortunately, the end is not in sight.

References:

• World Bank, (2010). ‘Understanding Children’s Work Project based on Data from ILO, UNICEF and the World Bank’. Available at: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SL.TLF.0714.ZS?locations=NG

• Kuti, F. (2006). Domestic child servitude, society and the law. The Guardian. April 28. p. 53.

• Mill, J. S. (1970) “The Subjection of Women.” In Essays on Sex Equality, ed. Alice S. Rossi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Cited by Rosemarie.

• Rebecca Falconer and Annie Kelly, (2015). ‘the global plight of domestic workers: few rights, little freedom, frequent abuse’. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/mar/17/global-plight-domestic-workers-labour-rights-little-freedom-abuse. The Guardian. March 17, 2015.

• ILO Study, (2005). ‘Child Labour’. Available at: http://www.unicef.org/wcaro/WCARO_Nigeria_Factsheets_ChildLabour.pdf. UNICEF, Nigeria country programme.

• IDWFED, (2014). ‘Nigeria: Domestic Workers are brought in for a Huge Profit’. Available at: http://www.idwfed.org/en/updates/nigeria-domestic-workers-are-brought-in-for-a-huge-profit. International Domestic Workers Federation, 2014.

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Blog Post Author: Maryanne Aniagolu-Oke is a bi-lingual freelance human resource generalist and community development expert who speaks English and German. Maryanne writes for SitiTalkBlog.

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