The woes of the underpaid and unappreciated domestic worker

These days it’s common for both the wife and husband to have fulltime employment. As a result more often than not, the home is left in the hands of the domestic workers. Surprisingly, despite the fact that these men and women are essential to the smooth running of our homes, they are taken for granted.The Housemaid 27-year-old Dativa Uwitonda has been working for a family living in Kicukiro for a year and three months. Her daily schedule is backbreaking. She wakes up at 5am, prepares breakfast for the children and boils water for them to shower and ensures that they are ready for school. At around 7am, she mops the whole house and cleans and organises the rooms until about 10am. She then prepares lunch, making sure it is ready by 12:30pm. She eats, washes all the pots and pans and then washes the children’s uniforms until 4pm. Preparing evening tea follows that task. All the while she makes sure to heat water for the children to shower when they come back from school. Preparing dinner and ironing the children’s uniform keeps her busy until about 11pm when she finally goes to bed. “When I came here, the work wasn’t a lot and my salary was Rwf 15,000. As time went on, the three children, who were previously in boarding school, became day scholars. Work became a lot and sleeping hours became few,” she said. “I was working like a donkey,” she remembers.When Uwitonda approached her employer to ask for a increment, the door was slammed in her face claiming she got all that she needs and didn’t need a salary increment. “Putting aside all the work there are many other problems that I face. Like if I laugh with the father of the home his wife will shout at me for about three days in a row about every small thing I do,” she complains. Uwitonda has two children studying in primary school and supports her mother living in the village. “My mother doesn’t have a job or anyone to take care of her and my children. Although Rwf15,000 is too little, I have to work around that and survive,” she narrates. She says that she has to withstand the challenges because she didn’t go to school. . The Night watchman Fred Bigira works in Kimironko“I have to stay up all night waiting to open and close the gate because the six family members come back very late at night. In the morning I wake up and have to wash the cars, sweep the compound clean and wash clothes. By the time I am done with all this, it’s already midday and I take a nap which is always interrupted by the opening and closing of the gate,” he complains. After a tiresome day, Bigira walks about two kilometres to buy milk in the evening and gets back in time to begin his night shift. Despite this work, he earns only Rwf 20,000 which he also gets after about 5 months. “The one reason I don’t like working in homes is that the people are never grateful. They complain over and over again like a person is supposed to work like a machine. Some of them are even rude and call me all sorts of names,” said Bigira. “Unfortunately I have to do this job because I don’t have a house to stay in and I don’t have many skills. I am from a very poor background so I need the money,” he says mournfully. “They have shelter, they have food” Jack (not real name) is a resident of Kimihurura and has a family of six. “When you look at all the things that are either wasted or broken, it’s all done by the maids. They don’t care for anything at home because they aren’t the ones paying from their pockets. So you find that a lot is wasted. Don’t forget their habit of stealing,” he says. Jack also claims that the work they do isn’t worth a big salary since they stay in his home and have all their needs taken care of. “They have shelter, they have food and usually the petty change, which they should be returning to us, goes missing in their hands. So I wouldn’t see why these maids have to be paid more than Rwf 15,000,” Jack said. We are creating a trade union for maid-CestrarAfricain Biraboneye, deputy Secretary-General of Cestrar, a major trade union, believes that the rights of domestic workers have been abused for too long. “Even after doing a lot of work, they are poorly paid, but the biggest problem that we face is that we can’t fix a salary for them because our country is still using a minimum wage of 1972, which was Rwf 100,” he said. “The people do a lot of work and you find that they have many responsibilities back home and they deserve more money.” Not only are they being underpaid but sometimes they are also abused by their employers. CESTRAR has a plan to create a union for domestic servants, to fight for their rights“We have already done the mapping to allocate where the maids are and how we shall organise these unions. This agenda is a priority in our activities and these unions will also help workers to be valued and appreciated like they are supposed to be,” he said.