Feature: The plight of house-helps

In these times where everyone has to work, and thus leave home there is need for house-helps. These not only take care of the domestic chores but also take care of the children and ensure that no intruders break into the house during the course of the day. The house-helps have various reasons that drive them into the occupation. While some find some solutions to their problems, others find themselves in even worse conditions. The SundayMag visited some and here are their stories. Run away girl In a small village in Gikongoro, in Nyamagabe district, in Rwanda’s southern province, a young teenage girl was engrossed in her duties. Her mind so far away in a place where there was laughter and happiness. Her dark figure squatted washing dirty dishes on the mud floor of a dimly lit soot stained kitchen. With the help of a candle that violently flickered in the night wind, she sparingly used the water in the small basin- she didn’t want to go twice down the valley to fetch another 20 litre jerry can of water. She diligently washed her way through the dirty kitchen ware. The night was so quiet as she did her chores. All her siblings were fast asleep because they had to go as early as 5:00 am to school. Born in a family of eight, including half brothers and sisters, she was the oldest girl at home. As a result, she never went back to school after her Primary six exams. Her father had said that there was no money to waste on a girl’s secondary education. He said she was more useful at home cooking since they had no mother. Her mother was last seen fifteen years ago after the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi. She was three years old when her mother disappeared; no one knows her whereabouts. Suddenly, she was shaken out of her daydreaming when she heard her father’s angry voice. ‘You good for nothing girl, what can you ever do in your hopeless life, you can’t even cook a decent meal,” he drunkenly shouted. Fanny Mutuyemaria coldly watched as her father staggered drunkenly into the house. Without even a glance at the food neatly laid on the table, the father’s insults followed one after another. Little did her father know that her daughter had taken the time all afternoon to go look for ripe tomatoes to make a specially tasty meal for him and her siblings who actually enjoyed it. This she did to impress him so that the abuse would stop. She hurt so much she couldn’t take any more of it. Eighteen years old and stuck in a poverty stricken broken home, Mutuyemaria needed a way out. She hated the way she was treated, no one bothered to give a hand. The house work was breaking her and funnily, her father thought that was the best she could ever do. That night as she silently cried in her small mat bed, she devised a plan to run away from home and find a better life in the city. A friend had told her she would help her escape if she had enough transport fare to Kigali. So she got a small job with a road cleaning and garbage collecting company. By 6:30am, when her father was gone to his storekeeping job and all the children were at school, she ran to four hour job which started at 8:00am and ended at 12:00noon. She earned Rwf400 for each day she worked. Over a period of two months, she saved Rwf6000. Early one morning, Mutuyemaria escaped from home without telling anyone, sat on a bus and came to Kigali City with no idea of what she would become. She met a boy in Remera who was given clear instructions by her friend to take her to a home that needed a house-help. Today Mutuyemaria works in Remera and earns Rwf8000 per month. “This is not what I hoped to become,” she said in tears, “this is not different from what I was back home, except I get paid,” Mutuyemaria said. In Rwanda, this is just one case scenario representing thousand more girls and boys. With Rwanda’s current GDP growth rate of 11.2 percent and income per capita of US$ 1per annum, the high levels of poverty and unemployment daily force the Rwandan youth and children into a cycle of rural-urban migration. Upcountry youth want to try life in the City of Kigali. Statistics show that poverty has led to a situation where 1 in every 7 children attends secondary school education. Primary school education being free and secondary not, has resulted in only 7.9 percent of rural Rwandan youth attending secondary school and a primary school dropout rate of 14 percent since many parents cannot afford to pay school fees. This is according to a survey carried out on household living conditions. Victims of circumstances, these vulnerable and desperate youth have no choice but to seek employment wherever they can. They swarm the city looking for employment as househelps in order to survive and in turn send money back to their impoverished families. Fanny Mutuyemaria is one of these upcountry youths. There are other stories too. Work with no pay Sixteen year old Estelle Uwamahoro, at the end of last year, with the help of a friend was taken up by a lovely young couple in Kacyiru. They promised to pay her Rwf12,000 per month. She was delighted to have a job, somewhere to sleep and food to eat. This for her was far better than the life she led in her village of Gashora in Bugesera district in the Eastern Province of Rwanda. Being a total orphan of the genocide, Uwamahoro together with her younger sister, now 15 years old, lived in poverty with an old woman who adopted them while they were still babies. She goes ahead to narrate how her new found job, turned sour. As soon as she checked in, her dreams of a better life faded into thin air. “They started calling me names, shouting at me and overworking me,” she slowly says. Her normal day started at 4:00a.m cooking breakfast, thereafter she laboured washing dishes and clothes, cooking, mopping the house and eventually slept at 10:00pm when everyone had gone to bed. As she told her story, you couldn’t help but notice the pain and bitterness that showed on her facial expression, let alone her voice tone that spoke volumes. “I worked hard for four months with no pay, endured all the verbal abuse because I wanted to get paid,” she said, “…but when I persistently asked for my whole salary, I was given only Rwf6000 and chased away.” With nowhere to go, no food to eat and no place to sleep, Uwamahoro took to the road, got on a bus and went back to her village. She used the money to buy school materials for her younger sister and buy a gift for the old woman. Her stay was short lived because the poverty at her home, was chocking. With her little savings, she got back on a bus and returned to Kigali, this time with an informed decision- to earn a salary at the end each month. She became a member of a house-help association, ‘Kigali Service for Vision at a fee of Rwf2,000. Located on Kimichanga road next to ‘One Love Centre’ towards town, ‘Kigali Service for Vision’ was founded in 2005 by Betty Uwera. The association takes up youth between the ages of 17 to 29 who are then hired by clients as househelps or security guards in the case of boys. The clients pay a fee of Rwf 3,000, sign a contract of agreement that ensures that they will feed, pay Mituelle- health insurance and a monthly salary of Rwf10,000 to the house-help. At the end of each month, a fee of Rwf1000 is deposited by every member at the association so as to sustain its growth and also feed and accommodate more youths from upcountry who are job hunting. “I founded this association because I saw the need that all these young people had,” Uwera said. Now four years down the road, Uwera, has two small houses where she accommodates and feeds homeless youths as they wait their turn to be hired. Secret but visible effects The constant oppression and unfair treatment of house-helps has resulted in various undesirable situations namely; theft, prostitution, contraction of HIV/Aids, rape and even murder. When on April 8, 2007, ‘The New Times’ reported of Bosco, a houseboy who hauled a grenade at his former employees killing himself in the blast, people were in utter shock. Luckily the employees never died. Apparently, investigations revealed that when he quit his job, Bosco was seething with thoughts of vengeance because he was daily harassed and his pay had been decreased with each passing month. While many think this unthinkable, it’s thinkable just as the saying goes, “There is no smoke without fire.” In his book, ‘When victims become killers,’ Mahmood Mamdani rejects easy explanations that violence and killers are a result of some mysterious evil force that bizarrely takes over people. Instead he explains the historical, geographical, socio-economic and political forces that constantly push people to become violent killers. However, all is not doom and grim, for there are employees who treat their house-helps with due respect as human beings. “I used to pay my house-girl Rwf10,000 each month and when after a year’s work, she requested for an increase, I did not hesitate to add her an extra Rwf5,000,” Anna Akariza, said. She said that she was pleased with how 21 year old Louise Mukeshimana diligently performed her duties. The mere fact that Rwanda’s house-helps have no specific contracts is a present reminder that the country has policies to straighten up. Earlier this month a new labour law was passed that takes a tough stance on forced labour. The law protects both the employer and employee and allows for two year renewable contracts to be drawn. Despite this, the law does not specifically cater for house-helps since they only get verbal contracts that can be broken anytime. According to Deogratius Kayumba, the Vice Chairman of Human Rights Commission, the labour law is not yet technically applicable to the house-helps’ situation. It mainly caters for qualified workers who have ‘papers’ (certified qualifications). In the case of having contracts, he underscored the loopholes that would result. At the forefront he said, was unemployment for house-helps. Unlike in the developed world where working contracts are signed and only the rich can afford to hire a domestic worker in most cases live-out workers, Rwanda’s situation is very different. The disparity and need for house-helps to get hired is seen in the numbers flocking the city. This makes a live-out working situation very difficult to achieve since one of the house helps urgent needs is a place to sleep and food to eat. Despite all these setbacks, at least the labour law should cater for minimum working conditions for the Rwandan house-help. At the end of the day, all parties are working together for the country’s development towards achieving Vision 2020. Let’s all face the fact that house-helps, though seem insignificant in society, are important; they are a useful part in the labour workforce, for without them working class parents would find it extremely difficult to perform their duties at their jobs and consequently this would affect the country’s growth and development. Contact: anyglorian@yahoo.com