Mistreatment of domestic staff

Having domestic staff or helpers in your home is a rare thing in the West. However, in South Asia, almost every other household has someone or the other that works for them, full-time or part-time, whether it is to cook or clean or drive or help with the laundry.

When I lived in Canada, I met perhaps two or three people who had someone come in to clean their house and to cook. Those people were considered to be particularly rich and affluent. But what I remember clearly is that the cleaning ladies were paid at least minimum wage per hour or more, paid on the spot or on time and more than anything else, treated with respect and dignity.

When I came back to Pakistan ten years ago, people laughed when I wanted to know the minimum wage before settling somebody’s pay. I was also lectured by many a committee-party aunty about how I shouldn’t ‘spoil’ people working for me and about how I should be an evil, cold witch to the staff. “No tips, beta. No medical expenses, no special treatment and make sure you don’t let them eat the same food as you.”

Coming from a country where being politically correct is a huge issue, it was shocking to find out then that people paid less than minimum wage to their domestic staff. ‘Full-time’ in these countries doesn’t mean slogging away for 24 hours of the day: minimum wage is set for people working a normal 9-5 day. Compare this to how our domestic staff work. A live-in maid is made to wake up before everyone in the house, work all day in the heat, and then sleep after everyone in the house is asleep. This amounts to approximately 16 hours a day. If she falls sick, she will normally be told she is useless and is doing ‘dramas’. She is expected to pay for her medical expenses and if she takes more than a day or two off to recover from sickness, she is likely to be replaced.

Another common practice is separate food being cooked for the staff. The employers will eat meat every day, be it beef, mutton or chicken. The staff will normally get daal or three-day-old leftovers. And yet, if a guest arrives at the house, “mehmaan-nawaazi” and honour of the family dictate that ten different dishes be instantly prepared. Why isn’t family honour undermined when the family’s employees starve?

One way that people get away with abusing their servants is by hiring children who are in no position to respond or to speak out. A 12-year-old girl holds a three-year-old girl. The 12-year-old is clearly under-nourished and wears clothes which are too big for her. The three year old is dressed to the nines and looks healthy and happy. The mother of the three-year-old whacks the 12-year-old because she isn’t holding her daughter right. The same woman’s seven-year-old son comes along and kicks the 12-year-old in the shin five minutes after his mother has stormed off. Why does he kick her? Because he can. What makes the seven-year-old and the three-year-old more special than the 12-year-old? No one chooses where they are born.

My ultimate point is this: why do we treat outsiders with so much respect and yet mistreat the people who live in our homes and take care of us? What makes them less human or less deserving of our respect? Just because we can get away with acting like jerks doesn’t mean we should. Learn to treat human beings with kindness and respect. That is everyone’s basic human right. I repeat — everyone.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 14^th, 2015.

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