Maids: What you give is what you get?

Yoliswa Dube Features Reporter
IT’S a simple transaction, *Angie explains, what you give is what you get. “You give love, you get love, you show hate, you get hate in return,” she says. Clad in a worn out pink jersey and an African print cloth wrapped around her waist while standing at the corner of Robert Mugabe Way and 4th Avenue in Bulawayo where she stood looking for a potential employer, Angie says she is only good to her employer’s children if the employer is also good to her.

It’s almost lunch time on a windy Tuesday but Angie has still not found a job. She has an 18-month-old daughter and desperately needs money to take care of her toddler.

She and many other job seekers brave the cold and court each person who stops to inquire about their services.

“It’s $10 for the day, $80 per month for a permanent job and $120 if you’ve a big house or yard,” one woman shouts from across the pavement.

Some of these job seekers sit along the pavements while others sit under trees and just wait. They have, since early morning, when most seek part-time domestic workers, waited.

Angie clutches a black handbag and constantly looks at her cellphone while she explains why maids appear barbaric when deep down, they are normal human beings.

“The relationship I’ve with my employer is what determines the relationship I’ll have with her children. If you take care of me well, don’t shout at me or always complain, I’ll also take care of your children well.

“Depending on our age difference, if my employer treats me like her younger sister and not like a slave I’ll not hate her children. Because I’ll never have an opportunity to show my employer how she makes me feel, I’ll take out all my anger on her children when she’s not around. But if she respects me as a fellow human being, I’ll also be patient and love her children,” said Angie.

Too often, Angie explains, domestic workers are bad mouthed and treated like lesser human beings because of the nature of their jobs.

“There are many instances where you go to someone’s house and you can easily tell who the maid is. Too many employers abuse their maids in many different ways. There are some households where food is measured for you. You have to eat a certain amount of food which is set aside for the day. The rest of the food is locked away and you only use your daily rations.

“You work all day and the only opportunity you get to rest is when you’re sleeping or when your employer is not at home. After all your hard work, your boss gets home and starts complaining about your work. It’s really frustrating,” she says.

Last week, Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Lawrence Kamocha sentenced a housemaid who wrapped a 10-month-old baby in a heavy blanket and stashed him in a drawer for making “too much” noise, until the baby suffocated, to 22 years in jail.

Justice Kamocha convicted Violet Moyo, 22, of Bulawayo’s Cowdray Park suburb of murder with actual intent for the death that occurred on February 1, 2013, when she was left in custody of the baby.

Meanwhile, a Silobela housemaid recently began a two-year stretch in jail for assaulting a 10-month-old baby until he bled from the nose as punishment for trying to leave the house.

She said she wanted to stop him from messing the house and yard which she had cleaned in anticipation of an inspection at their residence at ZRP Camp Silobela.

Vimbai Machokoto, 20, was convicted on her own plea of guilty to assault by Kwekwe resident magistrate Taurai Manwere.

In December last year, a Ugandan maid was sentenced to four years in jail for assaulting a toddler in a case which sparked outrage across the world after a video was released on social media.

Jolly Tumuhiirwe, 22, was filmed beating, kicking and stamping on the 18-month-old child.

A significant number of mothers took to social networking sites to express their anger over each incident, describing these women as housemaids from hell.

They said housemaids should never be trusted and parents should opt for daycare instead. Others argued day care centres were equally unsafe, leaving parents with very few options.

“I would never leave my daughter Pearl with a maid ever again. Our maid used to abuse her in my absence and till this day if you raise your voice at Pearl, she covers her face in anticipation of a slap. It hurts me every day to see how traumatised my daughter is because of how our maid treated her,” said Amanda Moyo.

Moyo said she was happy to see justice prevail in the cases of maids who had been reported to have abused children.

“It’s good to see the law take its course because it’s hard as a parent trusting someone else to take care of your child the same way you would have done it yourself. Now, I prefer daycare, maids can never be trusted,” she said.

For many years, domestic workers in Zimbabwe have endured unfair labour practices and worked long hours for paltry salaries.

Such has been the level of abuse that over the years domestic help has been variously referred to as “garden boys” and “house girls”.

Domestic workers are often taken for granted and society views them as uneducated and under-qualified workers who can be hired and fired at will.

“I’ve worked as a domestic worker for the same family for the past 16 years. My employer has become like a sister to me and her children are like my children. I’ve literally raised these children and my employer appreciates this. In as much as we’ve had our differences over the years, she has treated me well and that’s why I have been loyal to her,” said Ellen Sibanda.

She said her employer’s children call her aunty or Aunty MaSibanda.

“I think the most important thing my employer realised was that I’m a human being just like her and simply needed means to take care of my own children,” said Sibanda.

She said her husband had left for neighbouring South Africa many years ago and left her to fend for their three children single-handedly.

“It’s sad to see how these young girls handle themselves when children are left in their care. Their behaviour is wrong but it’s important to consider the conditions in which they live which could be push factors,” said Sibanda. Given an option, Sibanda said, she would continue working for the family because they had developed a good relationship over the years. Sadly, age was no longer on her side.

“I’m now old and don’t have the energy I used to have. I’ll leave not because we fought but because I’m now old. I look forward to attending these children’s weddings because I helped raise them,” she said.

In terms of the Labour Relations (Domestic Workers) Employment Regulations, a domestic worker is a person employed in any private household to render services as a yard or garden worker, cook or housekeeper, child minder or disabled or aged (person) minder, irrespective of whether or not the place of employment is in an urban or rural area. The government has set wages for domestic workers at between $85 and $100 per month.

A gardener should get $85 per month or a weekly wage of $19,60, while a cook or housekeeper is entitled to $90 per month or $20,79 per week.

Domestic workers looking after the disabled had their wages pegged at $95 per month or $21,94 per week.

Some domestic workers with Red Cross certificates or similar qualifications who take care of the disabled and the aged are paid $100 or $23,10 per week.

The move by the government is in line with the call by the International Labour Organisation for member-states to effectively implement a historic convention which seeks to improve the working conditions of millions of domestic workers worldwide.

Convention 189 on Decent Work for Domestic Workers was adopted at the International Labour Organisation 100th session in Geneva, Switzerland.

*Not her real name.