Maids and male servants in Nigeria, the dregs of the society, abandoned by their helpless parents because of poverty, they are sometimes exploited by their employers in favor of cheap labor. They have no official watchgroup that tries to still the abuse they suffer in the respective households. Early to rise, and the last person to retire to bed, they are the dregs of the society. Abandoned by humanity, but upheld by the Grace of God, a maid/servant from Nigeria is a survivor.

During the children's holiday (May 27th), I will pester my parents to allow me to go to the stadium. Reluctantly, pops will cede to my request, drop a couple of change into an excited kid, and off I will dash to Staff school to join my mates to the stadium. While we enjoyed the icecream offered to us by hawkers, some of them, younger than I am, the thought of child abuse never dawned on me. I was having fun. But the beauty of America has opened my eyes to the ugly subject of child abuse. While laws have been enacted in the society to stem the tide of child labor, Nigeria and other third world countries are still lagging behind.

And these children suffer. Broken promises of an unfulfilled education made by the 'benefactors' of these kids, abuse, both verbal and physical. And I can recall talking to my younger sister a while back. She lives with my aunt and she informed me that Aunty just got a new maid. She was a student at some school in my state but that abruptly came to an end when her father, supposedly the bread winner passed away. And as she told me of this heart breaking news, I reflected on my sister's lot who would have been in a similar situation but for dollars interspersed with love. I reflected on life's vicissitudes and how it can derail one's future. A death in the family could uproot a scholar from the four corners of an educational institution to the harsh streets in town selling Akara and Ogi. Such tragedy may necessitate the employment of the victims as a servant in another household. The abuse those servants endure, both physical, verbal, mental and sexual. You hear sordid tales of broken promises for an education, tales of starvation and a rise in inferiority complex.

But the bad ones can also invoke some calamity into an otherwise stable household. The sultry ones can boast of the number of men who had crossed their legs. The devilish ones would plot to usurp the madam of the house. All what it takes is a clandestine trip to a herbalists house and the end result is depositing some philtres secretly into a pot of soup and Madam is out of the house. Accusations and counter accusations have been labelled at both sides and with proofs to support their evil acts.

So, what do you think? Should there be a law forbidding the employment of servants in Nigeria under a certain age? I think so too. Agreed that poverty is no respecter of persons and that death is inevitable, but that should not be a compelling reason for any parent to send their eight year old daughter to work as a maid in another person's household.

Only God can save them

Yeah, but we the educated masses can also help them too by speaking out on their behalf. Houshelps bear the brunt of work in Nigeria for most of the day, without any respite, or overtime. Their salary is fixed, and their days off work is nil. Now, in America, if you are an hourly employee and work past 8 hours, you get paid overtime. Weekend jobs, though common here, sometimes result in a higher pay. Child labor has been overlooked for a very long time in Nigeria, and we have to put our hands on deck and end this injustice.

Interesting topic Ndipe.
I agree with you that there should be a ban on underaged servants.In many cases,these underaged boys and girls get the so called employments through "agencies" based in the cities.These agencies then hook them up with the household and give them away to sub-employers without even screening them.These kids work day in day out,all year round and in the end more than 3/4 of their pay goes to the agencies.Their parents in the villages recieve just a pittance of their pay(which doesnt deserve to be called a pay in the first place)and the cycle continues.
Its really disgusting but looking at it from another perspective,what chioce do these poor families have?Nobody would employ a mother with 5 children to come and work in their household so these poor mothers would rather send their kids off to work so that at least some income no matter how little comes in for feeding.

Hmm, spikedcylinder. Housemaid placement agencies? I need to keep abreast of Nigerian news, cos, I have never heard of that. I left naija in the 90's and during my childhood, my parents got their maids through word of mouth from relatives or friends in the village. For the most part we treated them well, and some of them left on good terms. But as a grown up, I feel that we should overhaul the system of hiring servants in Nigeria. Some people abuse their servants as if they are non human beings. It is not fair at all!!!

Very insightful Ndipe.

I am on the same wavelength as you, I believe this maid/servant thing should be outlawed by insisting
that such persons should reach a minimal age.

To me, it is better to be poor than subject a young life through such harsh conditions. I have seen people
that were very poor while growing up (e.g. Mc Hammer), but they did not have to grow up with such
humiliation as those young maids do in Nigeria.

Poor parents should have faith in God and be prayerful rather than make their kids suffer like that.

Another person offers an insightful commentary on this topic, "Hired helps". Quite similar to my earlier discourse.

Read this:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/cdd9677b4339ed898c384cb0c02c402d.htm


OU ARE HERE: Homepage > Newsdesk > Article
NIGERIA: Domestic workers or modern day slaves?
12 Sep 2006 17:44:42 GMT
Source: IRIN
Printable view | Email this article | RSS XML [-] Text [+]

LAGOS, 12 September (IRIN) - Human traffickers make good business taking poorly educated girls from Nigerian villages to toil as domestic workers in the sprawling urban throb of Lagos. But the girls, some as young as five years old, see little or none of their earnings.

Tonia Ayo-Ola, 19, has worked for three months without a day off. Each morning she is up by 6 a.m. preparing breakfast for her "master".

She doesn't roll out her sleeping mat on the living room floor, until after the last person is in bed, often well after midnight.

"I have no friends, I never go out and no one comes looking for me. I am not happy. It is not that they are wicked to me but it is not like being with my family - I am not free," Tonia said.

Tonia has never been paid for her toil, though she knows the traffickers promised her family an unspecified sum of money at the end of the year, when she hopes to return home.

If the girls get any money at all after the traffickers have levied their "transport fees" and "commission" it is only a fraction of what they laboured for, said Justina Onifade of the United Nations Chidlren's Agency, UNICEF.

Across West Africa, millions of girls like Tonia -- and less often boys -- are effectively sold into slavery as domestic workers. Sexual, physical and emotional abuse is widespread. Many are kept under lock and key, and have no contact with anyone outside their employers - no one to turn to for help.

Once away from their families, the girls are at the mercy of the traffickers who, in some cases, move them from household to household pocketing their wages.

Tonia Ayo-Ola's ordeal started when recruiters came to her village in Ogun State just north of Lagos and said they could fix her up with a job as a domestic worker with a well off family in the city.

A deal was struck with her brother, and the next thing Tonia knew she was heading to Lagos to work in a stranger's house.

As the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa, Lagos is a nerve centre for human trafficking according to UNICEF.

Tackling Nigeria's problem with internal trafficking is a first step towards addressing Nigeria's role as a hub for international human trafficking networks, according to Orakwue Arinze of the Nigerian government's National Agency for Prohibition of Traffic in Persons (NAPTIP).

"Internal trafficking is the ingredient for international trafficking as once [these girls] are taken from their family, anything can happen," Arinze said.

Child trafficking is one of the fastest growing organised crimes with an estimated 1.2 million victims per year, according to UNICEF.

In a regional bid to tackle the problem, members of the regional economic body ECOWAS recently agreed on a plan of cross-border cooperation.

In an additional measure, the Nigerian government has passed a law making it illegal for under 18s to work in the household of non-family members. But labour is so cheap that domestic help is the norm, and few Nigerians are aware of the law.

NAPTIP officials say that it's a fight against poverty in a country where the UN estimates 70 percent of the population live on less than US $1 a day.

"Poverty can make someone act like an animal, as it is animalistic to look at your children like something you can sell - in fact, even animals don't do that," NAPTIP's Arinze said.

NAPTIP is working with UNICEF to reunite trafficked domestic workers with their families. But UNICEF's Onifade said the task is complicated because some of the youngest children do not know their father's names or where they are from.

For others, UNICEF is working with the government to provide hundreds of domestic workers in Lagos with vocational or literacy classes to broaden their horizons.

At the Agege Vocational Training Centre, young women, girls and one or two young men, can chose from a range of classes, including hairdressing, fashion design and even "snailery", the rearing of African giant snails which are a favourite dish in southern Nigeria.

Just getting the girls out of the house and around other people can dramatically improve their situation, enabling them to meet peers and perhaps find support if they feel they are being abused or mistreated.

But the free programme will probably never reach the most vulnerable girls.

"At these centres girls are brought out of the house. They get to know their rights, they share experiences and get support," Onifade said. "That is exactly the reason some masters will never release them."

ss/nr


Culled from

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/IRIN/cdd9677b4339ed898c384cb0c02c402d.htm

Another insightful article in the NYTimes (Sunday edition)

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/29/world/africa/29ghana.html?ei=5087%0A&em=&en=5e681b9c3df8108a&ex=1162270800&pagewanted=all

In as much as i want us to look at the working condition of the maids or househelps in Nigeria, i also want us to examine the causes of such ill treatment.

1. Why do they become househelps? People may rush to say poverty, but is poverty really the cause? Some parents ar truely poor but if they give birth to just one or two children, they would still have been able to cater for them in their poor status. but what do you see? the poor usually have 5 to 8 children. So they either send them to family members or turn them to househelps. so parents are sometimes the cause.

2. Another thing, parents send them off as househelps and they negotiate the pay. May be because they are desperate for money or because they are not aware of how much the agents charge the Ogas, they end up getting their children underpaid.

3. Like i said in some other threads, some employers of maids have learnt their lessons. They now know that if you dont take care of your maid and you leave your children with her/him, she/he will not take good care of your children. He/she will retaliate. nevertheless, some still havent learnt their lessons. they still maltreat maids, so for those ones, and the shylock agents, there is a need to make law to standardise the maids labour market.

4. That is where the government comes in. Government needs to fulfil its obligation to the society. Even now, it is becoming difficult for an average Nigerian to send their children to school. How then will they thinlk of sending a maid to school. it costs so much that the family is just mnanaging to educate their own children. So they wont be able to help the maid.

Laws should be in place to regulate child labour and that will cover street trading and the use of children as beggars. Some parents do that when they dont want to send their children to be househelp but this is even bad. it exposes children to many dangers.

I know a firm that hires and place houshelps and other domestic staff like nannies etc with clients and they treat their employees with utmost respect their salaries are paid promptly and they have other benefits. The firm is Paulablack Limited and they are trying to make the domestic help job a more professional work. You can look them up using this address www.paulablackdomestichelp.com or email them at info@paulablackdomestichelp.com.

If you are are looking for a job or need their services you should try them out.

Things like this will always b around coz wil hv d devi,l but dnt worry we are coming 2 stop such things. The trinity n 33 others are wrkin real hard, jst a mata of time.

All said and done. I own an agency that employs this set of people from poor family backgroud. I must be honest with you that there are no laws now to checkmate the excesses of this anomaly at government level but we have a very strong policy that looks after the welfare of these housemaids we give out because our business are well documented. We force our clients to sign an undertaking to abide by the rules. We do not offer to assist underage,Most of our employees comes from NGOs. More can still be to done to protect this young lads. We are working we will get there.

That is a great site! I saw the information is very usefule!

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE ME DO #SuperBloggers by @waleflame -
http:///7m54loj via @omojuwa...........This article has been nominated for an award ... pls like and share

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/opinion/sunday/in-nigeria-youre-either-somebody-or-nobody.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0&ref=opinion

A Nigerian novelist wrote this article on the NYtimes.