If only I
could have access to interview one or two domestic servants, housemaids,
babysitters or House-helps before typing this narration, the article would have
been balanced from the two sides of the divide. Nevertheless, that will not
deter me from shedding light on the phenomenal cause of domestic abuses going
out of fashion between the supposed Domestic Servants (the term I will use
interchangeably for all the aforementioned category of workers) and the
Almighty ‘Oga’ and ‘Madams’. According to Wikipedia, A domestic worker is a
person who works within the employer's household. Domestic workers 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. The term Domestic Servants refers generally to all
categories of employees saddled with the responsibility of taking care of house
chores in exchange for remuneration/wages. These House chores could be:
1. Cleaning of the House
2. Baby-sitting
3. Cooking
4. Laundry
5. Gardening
6. Running Errands
7. Elderly Care
8. Pet Care
9. Personal Assistance
10.
General
Maintenance.
This is the
concept of Domestic Servants in the Stone Age era, Colonial and Modern Day
Practice;
Ancient World Slavery
Slavery
seems to have been a common practice in many ancient societies such as Egypt,
China and the Middle East. Most slaves originated from the spoils of war, kidnap
or voluntarily to pay for debts. The treatment of slaves varied in the ancient
world, but in most cases slaves were the property of the master, with little or
no rights or status. This meant that many were treated harshly, although most
ancient societies had some laws to regulate slavery, such as the Babylonian
Code of Hammurabi (1750 BC).
Slavery allowed in the Old Testament.
Some people
are shocked that slavery was an accepted practice in the Old Testament.
However, it must be remembered that the slavery sanctioned in the bible is very
different to the slavery that occurred in the Americas in the 17th and
18th Centuries which is perhaps the popular view of slavery. Old Testament
treatment of slaves was also generally more humane than the slavery practiced
in other ancient civilizations.
In Roman
society the experience of slaves varied depending on their master and the work
assigned to them. Some slaves were made to work hard and could be disciplined
ruthlessly for minor mistakes, whilst others placed in large villas could have
little work to do and were well looked after. Sometimes rich masters kept more
slaves than necessary to display their wealth. It is estimated that at the time
of Augustus, the richest 5 per cent of Roman citizens owned 1 million slaves;
another 2 million slaves were employed elsewhere out of a total population of
7.5 million. Reference…..David
Meager http://archive.churchsociety.org/
In Islamic
law, the topic of slavery is covered at great length.[1] The Quran (the holy
book) and the hadith (the sayings of Muhammad) see slavery as an exceptional
condition that can be entered into under certain limited circumstances.[2] Only
children of slaves or non-Muslim prisoners of war could become slaves, never a
freeborn Muslim.[3] They also consider manumission of a slave to be one of many
meritorious deeds available for the expiation of sins.[4] According to Sharia,
slaves are considered human beings and possessed some rights on the basis of
their humanity. In addition, a Muslim slave is equal to a Muslim freeman in
religious issues and superior to the free non-Muslim.[5]
In practice,
slaves played various social and economic roles, from Emir to worker. Slaves
were widely employed in irrigation, mining, pastoralism, and the army. Some
rulers even relied on military and administrative slaves to such a degree that
they seized power. However, people did not always treat their slaves in
accordance with
Islamic law. In some cases, the situation was so harsh that it
led to uprisings, such as the Zanj Rebellion.[6] However, this was an exception
rather than the norm, as the vast majority of labor in the medieval Islamic
world consisted of free, paid labour.[7] For a variety of reasons, internal
growth of the slave population was not enough to fulfill the demand in Muslim
society. This resulted in massive importation, which involved enormous
suffering and loss of life from the capture and transportation of slaves from
non-Muslim lands.[8] In theory, slavery in Islamic law does not have a racial
or color component, although this has not always been the case in practice.
Reference..Wikipedia
Colonial era was synonymous with Slave Trade
in the following perspectives;
For more
than 2,000 years people in many different parts of the world have forced their
fellow humans into slavery. Between about 1500 and 1900, Europeans forcibly
uprooted millions of people from throughout West Africa and West Central Africa
and shipped them across the Atlantic in conditions of great cruelty. To refer
to the Africans who were enslaved only as 'slaves' strips them of their
identity. They were, for instance, farmers, merchants, priests, soldiers, goldsmiths
and musicians. They were husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, sons and
daughters. They could be Yoruba, Igbo, Akan or Kongolese.
European
slavers dispersed them across the Americas to lead lives of degradation and
brutality, without thought for their personal lives. Millions died in the
process. As a result, people of African descent are spread throughout the
Americas and Western Europe. This is called the African Diaspora. Reference..
http://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/
MODERN DAY PRACTICE OF DOMESTIC
SERVANTS
The modern
day recruitment of domestic Servants are the ones commonly known as “house
helps” in Nigeria and other African States, they are usually recruited by
agents or brokers who negotiates with the family of the girl or the boy (most
times girls) who live in the rural areas, poverty stricken and need all the
money their daughters and sons can make to alleviate their lives. It is
important to note that this practice is against the MDGs 1 and 2 which talks
about eradication of poverty and access to Universal Basic Education.
The parent
are sometimes novice to where their children are taken and in most cases lately,
the parents are in fact privy to where their children are being taken to it can
be outside the border of Nigeria as it was reported that Nigerian children are
almost everywhere in the world as domestic workers.
The
recruiters are often relations, friends, and Human Traffickers who can sometimes
deceive the parents or Guardian that they are assisting in giving their
children better life by taking them to the city or outside the country.
Delightful words and promises will be said to the parents who at the end agree
with the recruiters.
Experience has shown that the recruiters can
either be the last source or an intermediary whose responsibility is just to
recruit and send the children to the agent who claims to run an agency on job
placement to their would be hires.
Deception is
often the occurring factor because even when the domestic worker is above
eighteen and has passed through post secondary school there is always
underlining tone that cannot be easily decipher by the engaged worker.
Just few
months back, a friend of mine who works in the bank while the wife is a civil
servant called to inform me about the attitude of their House help, it was
reported that the House help usually receives calls a lot and she most times
put her phone ringer in off mode to avoid being questioned on the number of
calls she receives. In the end, she was said to have confronted the madam on a
particular day and while my friend returned from work to intercede on the
matter, the house help was said to have barked at his wife and telling her not
to interrupt when Oga(my friend) is talking. My friend and his wife was taken
aback at the House help’s attitude, they have two kids and at that point in
time it became unsafe for them to grant the custody of their kids to the
House-help who was becoming nasty.
Another
incident also plays out with another family friend who has employed more than 4
different house-helps in the space of 8 weeks out of desperation to have
someone look after their children while they are at work, the house-helps and
their agents have device a new strategy of exploiting career family who doesn’t
have all the luxury of time to look after their children due to the nature of
the economy which most times demand that both husband and wife works to keep
the family together. The tactics they use varies in styles. Initially, the
agents don’t collect money or fees before providing the house-helps, however,
recent events has shown that those in need of house-helps usually pays between
N10,000 to N20,000 before they are given any house-help at all. Once the
House-help arrives, it won’t take long before the plan to force her rejection
will be hatched, she will deliberately put up unusual and untoward behaviors
and exhibit unpleasant feelings towards the children and in the course of all
these the house-help is sent back to the agents/recruiters. But, before they
bring another house-help, you will have to pay another initial deposit which is
usually termed transportation fees from the village, this cycle of deceit will
continue until they are satisfied with their illicit gain from the rackets.
In
conclusion, it is advisable to go through the corporate and professional
recruitment agents when in need of domestic servants as this will reduce the
risk associated with employing domestic workers whose background you can not
verified. The person you wish to entrust your home and family with should be
such that in your absence your mind is at peace and there is guarantee that
he/she will treat your family like theirs’. Many OGA and MADAMS too sometimes
treat Domestic Servants as Slaves, these house-helps sometimes transfer their
aggression on the children as was depicted on YouTube.....Watch the Video here...http://bit.ly/1NOgVyl, where a domestic worker
physically abused a child or the wicked ones among them may arrange with
external forces to attack and rob their paymasters. In the light of these
foregoing, it is important to have a standard regulation practice backed by
legislations and relevant laws that will protect both the Domestic servants and
the paymasters in the event issues of Abuses, injustice, domestic violence occurred
in homes where such relationship exists. Oga and Madam should see House-help as
Human being and not as slaves, also the house-helps should see their master’s
house as their homes too.
Olanite
Lekan
08034201291
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