The general assumption is that house helps, especially house girls are always the victims of maltreatment from their madams and so the tendency to overlook the atrocities some of them commit.
The most difficult and dangerous decision is to leave small children with a nanny, because no matter what, you cannot be sure of how well she would treat your child. They may present a caring attitude in your presence towards your child, but out of your presence they may beat your child.
Just recently I witnessed such a case several times. The mother of a three-year old girl would leave her daughter with the nanny and go to work or send the nanny with the daughter somewhere.
This nanny who is a least 17 or 18 years old would beat this girl and the girl would cry and haul herself at the nanny, beating her too.
“Stubborn girl, you are very stubborn,” she scolded the little girl.
And if the little girl went and sat beside her, she would ask her to go away from her, if the girl refused, then the nanny would move to another place.
And this is a nanny who is being well taken care of, the girl’s mother even got a lesson teacher for the nanny to improve her education. And what she paid the teacher was not part of the house girl’s salary.
On woman told me that she used to go and plait hair in one house where the woman was not always around. She would ask her to go and plait her house girls’ hair. The woman has small children left in the care of these house girls.
This woman said the house girls beat the children in the head very hard.
If only everybody has CCTV camera only God knows what people would discover.
Still some device a way to monitor what is really happening. Sometimes by mere observation you would know who likes children and is patient with them, while some may behave this way and cuddle your children, but behind your back they maltreat your children.
Therefore some make the habit of dropping unexpectedly, or observe when the child is afraid of the house girl and don’t want to be left with her.
The irony of human behaviour is that you undermine those that are good to you and respect those that treat you badly.
You pity the house girls that are maltreated; some are abused, shouted on, beaten, some are never allowed to rest. They would spend almost every second literally working. If they finish one core, they must be made to do another one. They may not be able to have breakfast until one o’clock in the afternoon. Meanwhile, madam, her husband and the children have had their own since.
Some are not given the food the family eats even if they prepare it.
But they behave towards those that treat them very well with less respect. These people treat them like their relatives, they give them whatever they eat, buy clothes for them, take them to the hospital and so on.
There was one woman as soon as her house girls got sick and required going to the hospital, she would send them away, saying she couldn’t spend her money on them.
One woman stopped having house girls because a house girl she sponsored through secondary school betrayed her and connived with a neighbour to find another house help job for her, where they would pay her more!
When it failed and she found out she sent her away.
Some seeing that they are treated well would soon behave as if it is their parents’ house especially if there are children of their age in the house. So they would do their cores reluctantly, feeing why should they do it, while your children are not doing it?
“I sent her away she compared herself with my daughters. She didn’t want to do her work. She forgot that her parents sent her to work and earn money. I paid her and I expected her to do what I paid her for. What about the food they eat?
Some people would say, you shouldn’t talk about food, that it is like a charity, but if you don’t give them food, would they stay? And I buy the food, or would I just go to the market and carry food?” She said heatedly.
As such people can only cross their fingers when employing house helps, because even the agents don’t really know anything about them. And there is no training a part from the usual reprimand to do their work well and not to take anything without permission.
On their part as well, they come from far away to live with total strangers that may or may not treat them well. This important informal sector needs everybody to help make it beneficial to all.
