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Maids Are Not Our Servants – An Effort For Voicing the ‘Voiceless’ and ‘Powerless’

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A few days ago, I came across this headline on a local news website which read “Child servant killed over refusal to make roti”. Taken aback by the title, I went ahead to click on the link and read the entire story. After reading it, I came to know that an eight-year-old maid, Beenish, was allegedly burnt to death by her employer over her denial to cook chapatti, in Gujranwala.

Here’s the video:

A few months ago, a 17-year-old girl, Fatima, working in a bungalow located in Karachi’s posh area was found hanged inside the house. Police investigated the case and found that the girl had been tortured and murdered. Last year, a 10-year-old child maid, Tayyaba, had been burnt and beaten for failing to pay a loan of Rs 6000 while working at the residence of an additional sessions judge in Islamabad.

Unfortunately, these are not the first of its kind incidents that have taken place in this country. Countless such incidents of abuse on domestic workers especially child maids and servants take place around us on a day-to-day basis. While most of them face our ignorance, a few lucky ones manage to gather the attention of the media.  It would not be wrong to say that each passing year brings to light horrific details of various child workers, abused and tortured, by their employers.

Source: Dunya News

Of recent, a friend was telling me that her housemaid got fired from two of her workplaces as she had taken four-day off because she was suffering from Chikungunya. Fired for being sick? Seriously? Where are we heading as a nation and society? I believe we are left with the remnants of the age of ignorance because we still are reluctant to give up on this modern form of slavery of humans. We take pride in hiring powerless children and women as our servants, paying them even less than the minimum wage rate and obliging them to do all the household chores while we sit with our eyes glued to the television screens.

Source: Geo.tv

The only time we show concern about this form of abuse is when we come across news of a domestic worker’s death or murder. What we never focus upon is our own part in fostering such abuse. We never aim attention at our own abusive words and offensive phrases that we use to command our housemaids to do the required chores. That is all a part of abuse on domestic workers that we are least bothered about.

Source: Geo.tv

My maid often complains that some of her employers refuse to give her water to drink let alone food to eat. What is to blame for such harsh attitude with domestic helpers? Lack of education? Certainly not, because most of the madams and begums at the rear of these acts of abuse are well-educated and well-groomed.

I am not blaming the entire society for such cruel treatment of servants as there are thousands here who take very good care of their workers’ rights, providing them food and whatever they need, apart from giving them their wages in time but it is the same society where voiceless child maids like Beenish and Tayyaba are beaten and tortured every other day.

What we ladies and gents (‘begums’ and ‘sahabs’), need to understand is that our domestic helpers are not our slaves. Even if they are smaller in age and belong to underprivileged families still that does not downgrade them to qualify for our slavery. We ought to try not to hire child maids and helpers but in case we have hired them, we must treat them with their due respect and try our level best not to violate their rights behind the closed doors of our bungalows.

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