CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
by Yacinthe Diene, Dakar, June 1998
THEME = WOMEN
The Bishops of Senegal call
for more just treatment of house servants
as a matter of urgency, even a priority.
In a Pastoral Letter published on 1 May for Labour Day, Catholic pastors intervened to sound the alarm: "We want to call attention particularly to the conditions of the weakest section of the feminine population - domestic workers". The situation of domestic workers calls for special attention. Their usefulness is undisputed. Yet Senegalese families do not provide them with either acceptable working conditions or sufficient remuneration.
Nearly all families, even of modest means, employ at least one maid, but Dakar families are the greatest providers of domestic servants. In a survey of child labour, it was found that, while there were only 66,000 people employed in the public services, there were 88,000 young girls in domestic employment. It was noted too that supply greatly exceeded demand in the domestic service market. As a result, young girls are recruited for derisory salaries of between 10,000 and 15,000 CFA francs (100 to 150 FF), except for the fortunate few who work for companies or for expatriate families where they earn up to 70,000 CFA francs with other advantages thrown in.
Formerly, only country girls found it necessary to go and work in the towns, either in order to prepare their marriage trousseau, or to help their families. Today, we find that town girls are competing with them for jobs. They are for the most part illiterate or of very little education, but there are some also who have completed their studies. "They are a significant force, for without them, salaried women would run into enormous difficulties. But they do not realise the contribution they make to the national economy and to the country's development." So declared the Senegal Catholic Women's Movement (SCWM) in the findings of their survey.
These young women support their parents who remain in the villages or their families at home. To make ends meet financially, five or six of them have to share a room measuring fifteen square meters in the most neglected suburbs of the city, without electricity or water. They have to travel for up to two hours to get to their place of work and to return in the evening. Their wages are not enough to enable them to pay for transport. Khady who has lived in Dakar for ten years declared: "Most of us are obliged to accept very low salaries and difficult working conditions so as to avoid having to beg or go on the streets."
House servants are often victims of abuse and treated with disdain or despised. They have to wait a long time for their wages and they can be sacked for the slightest reason, such as being falsely accused of stealing or breaking a piece of crockery, etc.
Likewise, when a dispute arises, they have no one to appeal to, since for the most part they have only verbal contracts that have no force in law. In fact, young girls have only verbal or imprecise bonds with their employers who demand from them at least 10 hours of work per day to do domestic chores like cooking, washing and ironing clothes, doing the washing up and other work. The bishops complain that: "Such an attitude is not only completely at variance with the gospel and the teaching of the Church, but also against the Declaration of the Rights of Man."
Some think that there are no laws in this area. Yet, there is the Ministerial decree of 1968, modified in 1972, regulating the employment of domestic servants. However, the law is almost continually broken and has become almost a dead letter for several reasons: the decree is no longer adapted to socio-economic reality - for example, the basic salary of the average Senegalese does not enable him to pay the minimum salary and still less to pay social contributions for a domestic servant.
People do not have the necessary information. The ministerial decree divides domestic employees into seven categories, each with the appropriate salary, hours of work, advantages and conditions of employment. The survey done by the SCWM reveals that "82% of households do not know of the existence of the law and do not apply it; and of those who do know only 4% observe it (generally expatriates)".
The Bishops of Senegal have published a striking statement of their position. They write: "A great leap in morality is needed to see that the dignity of all women in today's Senegal is respected and promoted...The state and the trade unions should review the laws on domestic workers to see if they are still applicable and then the public authorities should ensure that they are effectively applied...We insist that employers should have more consideration and more respect for their employees...We propose some lines of action that could profitably be carefully examined by the public authorities, the trade unions, the NGOs and the persons involved themselves: - building hospitality centres; creation of micro- project villages for young girls; setting up ways and means for dialogue between employers, employees and the government".
The most favoured solution among the NGOs, state institutions, the trade unions and the Church, is to fight poverty and the mounting lack of schooling, and increase awareness of the dangers and the measures to be taken eventually.
At any rate the voice of the bishops seems to have received favourable echoes from the authorities. They have set up a program with a provisional budget of $153,000,(91,800,000 CFA francs). This program, through about fifteen projects for apprentices, rural workers, and young house maids, aims at making the work of children less hazardous and less precocious and eventually to eliminate it completely. A course of action is mapped out for the years to come. That can only cause rejoicing among all who have the well-being of society at heart.
END
CONTENTS | ANB-BIA HOMEPAGE | WEEKLY NEWS
PeaceLink 1998 - Reproduction authorised, with usual acknowledgement