By Sampa Kabwela
I SHOULD be writing and recounting priceless moments shared with a fierce, weird and beautiful soul if it were not for slavery happening among us.
I have written on this subject before, on this very space, just over a year ago following the discontent that surrounded the introduction of the minimum wage.
I had argued that the bitterness and resistance to the minimum wage, largely by the middle class and bourgeoisie, was not because they couldn’t afford to pay K520 per month, but that the law had suddenly placed a value on people they deemed valueless; domestic workers.
I am returning to this subject because most of what I wrote about is still happening; the appalling conditions and treatment of domestic workers.
Last week, I was snubbed by a friend because her maid of one week had not returned from the weekend.
Her previous maid of two months, whom she had replaced after the disappearance of her maid of one month had not returned from a visit to the village.
Confusing? Not exactly. This is the norm in many households. There seem to be no end to how many maids can be replaced in a given period. Confusing it must be for small children to continually meet and lose their minders.
My friend has an explanation on why her maids quit so frequently, sometimes not even long enough to earn their first salary.
Her maid-turnover-theory is simple; they are unreliable!
The treatment and working conditions of many maids, housekeepers and nannies is a violation of basic human rights and in some cases, bordering on slavery; of protracted hours of work, for little and sometimes no pay.
I specifically want to talk about live-in-maids, arguably the most enslaved and abused of workers in the domestic labour market.
The live-ins are also the most sought after of maids and have the highest turnover rate, sometimes as short as a day and it’s not difficult to see why.
Unlike day maids, live-in-maids work until bed time. Their day starts as early as 05:00 am and ends as late as 23:00 hours, six to seven days a week, doing all manner of jobs from the simple, hard, odd to the bizarre.
The situation can’t be worse for maids sourced from villages, who in many cases are severely underpaid and work non-stop, every day, including weekends, public holidays and on Christmas Day.
Ironically most live-in maids are paid less than day maids on the premise that they live and eat for free! What a hollow argument because it advantages the employer rather than the maid to live in.
Does a live-in maid get to choose what she wants to eat different from what the employer wants to eat or watch a movie of her choice?
If it were not for desperation, many maids would rather work from 08:00 to 05:00, return to their homes, eat vegetables for supper, sleep on the floor, watch ZNBC than to labour, eat chicken and catch glimpses of Idols in their employers’ homes.
If this were not true, I would not be writing articles on maids who disappear after a day, a week or a month.
I have written before on the terror that most maids operate under, including physical, emotional and verbal abuse; maids who do shocking jobs such as wash underwear, not children’s underwear, but that of their employers.
Some maids are the sexual prey of husbands and men living in the house, including and most notorious, ‘men of God’.
Other maids have been beaten and fired by wives on suspicion that they sleep with their husbands.
This is not to suggest that all maids are innocent of vices and employers bad people. Not at all, but these stories of struggle and ill-treatment are not isolated; they are common.
Our society places very little value, if at all, on domestic workers, yet most houses come to a standstill when a maid fails to show up for work.
There is no subject I feel to have the moral authority to write more about than this one. I have never had to miss work or an appointment because a maid didn’t show up. In 12 years, I have had only three maids and this is largely due to a change in location.
The maid who received my day-old son from the hospital 12 years ago is still the maid; and she is still the maid for my daughter, nine years later.
I have my own theory on maids: co-dependence. We both need each other. I need someone to take care of my children and domestic life, and she needs an income; neither of us is superior to the other, each one has a responsibility and a duty to fulfil towards the other.
My flaws are countless, but I try my best to be a better person and good employer. My housekeeper is not only well paid, she works Monday to Friday and occasionally on Saturdays until 11 am. She’s entitled to overtime, paid annual, maternity and study leave and is off on all public holidays. She neither cooks for us nor wears those appalling uniforms.
From my experience, a good salary will get you a committed maid, but it is the treatment, the respect, the appreciation and the empathy that will keep a maid. A combination of a good salary and humane conditions will earn you more than a housekeeper; loyalty, respect, a friend, a lifetime confidante and a second mother to your children, but hopefully not a second wife too.
If you wish to keep your maid for longer than a month, try the following: respect, appreciation, fair pay, arrive home on time and say sorry and thank you more often.
And by the way, it’s your duty, not that of the maid to wake up at 5 am to prepare your own kids for school.
If the above is too much, you probably don’t deserve a maid and even the current one will disappear if not this weekend, certainly the next or the other.
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