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Zimbabwe Domestic workers never grow up |
SOCIAL CONDITION
The situation of domestic workers in present-day
Zimbabwe leaves much to
be desired
Domestic workers never grow up in Zimbabwe, they are forever boys and girls. Middle-aged and even elderly male and female domestic servants are referred to by their employers as either garden «boys» or house «girls». Although the tendency to treat servants as children is now common among middle and low-income black working couples, who engage house maids and child minders to keep their homes and children while they are at work, it is a colonial legacy left by the British colonial rule in both Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa.
In the late nineteenth century, Cecil John Rhodes who had occupied South Africa in search of wealth after the discovery in this country of diamonds in 1866 and gold in 1884, realised that socially and geographically displaced Africans would provide cheap labour for the mines. White workers who had escaped the economic depression of the 1870s in Europe and sought refuge in South Africa, could not be used by Rhodes as cheap labour, because they were his kith and kin, and were coming from a culture where labour was highly unionised and where workers could demand high wages. But Rhodes could not exploit black workers with a clear conscience. So he had to distort Christian principles and harness Christianity with Social Darwinism to justify the need to treat blacks as subhuman and in need of salvation from intellectually and spiritually superior Europeans, in this case, the British. He also had to decriminalise this form of exploitation by legislating in favour of the exploitation of black labour.
According to political analyst Bernard Magubane, Rhodes’ racial policy in South Africa, which was extended to the then Rhodesia, now called Zimbabwe, went thus: «I will lay down my policy on the Native question...either you will receive them (blacks) as citizens or call them a subject race...I have made up my mind that there must be class (race) legislation...The native is to be treated as a child...»
...and after Independence?
Rhodes’ legacy has left such an indelible imprint on the language describing relations between domestic workers and their employers in Zimbabwe, that 20 years after independence, black bosses have become worse exploiters and insulters of their own kith and kin whom they employ in their homes.
To make matters worse, some of these black «bosses» are juniors in their work places on low wages. But because they have a salary they are able to engage domestic workers. They thus become employers at home and replace anger against their employers in the workplace with anger against their nannies at home. Sometimes their domestic workers go for months without pay.
Women domestic workers are a particularly vulnerable lot, exposed to sexual and physical abuse by their male bosses. They are also lured into sexual relations with men who falsely promise them marriage and a better life than working as a domestic servant.
Single mothers and Shelter Trust
Shelter Trust is a rehabilitation home in Westwood, Harare, for sexually abused women. Nyarai Mudekwa (16) from Mufakose in Harare, is grateful for the care that Shelter Trust gave her after her boyfriend who had promised to marry her, had jilted her on discovering she was pregnant. He had got her pregnant while she was working as a housekeeper in Kadoma. Back in Mufakose, she was rejected by her aunt because she was pregnant, and later a friend advised her to go to Shelter Trust with her problem. Under the care of Shelter Trust staff, Nyarai gave birth to her first son, Tafadzwa, so named because she was grateful for the care that Shelter Trust gave her.
Following a knitting course at the Trust, Nyarai hopes to become self-supporting. Her upbringing denied her the chance of completing her formal education. She was brought up and educated up to Form Two by her maternal grandmother in Chihota communal area (some 40 kms south-east of Harare). Her ailing mother who has since died, was a single parent, separated from her husband before Nyarai was born. She tried to make a living selling vegetables.
Valeria Nherere (25) from Bikita, Masvingo (some 300 kms south of Harare), has a similar plight. She is pregnant, and almost due to give birth. Valeria came to the Trust in mid-March after the man who had got her pregnant while she was a housemaid in Harare’s Avenues area, denied responsibility.
Tsungirirayi Chimwani (22), also from Bikita, was working as a domestic worker in Warren Park for three months. She has twin boys, Tinotenda and Tadiwa, who are about three months old. Tsungirirayi was employed until December 1999, getting a monthly salary of only Z$500. She got into difficulties when the man she had been in love with, told her he was married, but only after he had got her pregnant.
Chengetanai Women’s Project
After hearing about all these bad experiences, potential housekeepers may get scared by the job, thinking they will all end up as frustrated single mothers. They may get the impression that there is something essentially wrong with domestic work. On the contrary, a recently established women’s project, training domestic workers in Chitungwiza seems to prove that domestic work can be rewarding.
«We train our students to be self-confident and prepared to repel sexual abuse through dialogue. They can also look for work from different employers and can bargain for higher salaries because of their training,» said Mrs Patricia Ngwerume, the Project Co-ordinator of Chengetanai Women’s Project, which specialises in skills-training for poor women in the low-income suburbs of Chitungwiza.
Mrs Ngwerume says the women are trained in child growth and development, and are shown how to detect and prevent child abuse. They are also taught how to resist any advances made to them by their employers. On a more positive note, they are taught to be sympathetic and offer to help out in the family whenever sickness strikes. When they graduate from the project, the women can be employed as domestic workers, nursing aids and as cooks and waiters in hotels. «Even if they do not find employment, what they have learned will be useful to them as mothers of families», says Mrs Ngwerume.
Chengetanai Women’s Project works hand in hand with neighbouring Bumhudzo Old People’s Home, run by the Salvation Army in St Mary’s township. Students from Chengetanai are sent on industrial attachment to Bumhudzo, in order to learn how to apply their theoretical training. The Project has a monthly enrolment of about 20 students, and offers three lessons every week for a very small fee of just about Z$50.
Having previously worked as domestic workers, women who train here all have some kind of story to tell concerning their previous employment, and after enrolment are encouraged to talk openly about their traumatic experiences in order to «unfreeze». Here’s a typical experience:
Florence Mafukidze (33) of St Mary’s township, Chitungwiza, is a mother of three and is married to a casual worker. She explains what happened to her when she was employed as a maid in Glen View, Harare, between 1981 and 1985, earning just a quarter of the salary others doing a similar job were getting. She says: «The woman I worked for was a nurse. When she was on night shift, her husband proposed love to me, promising to rent a flat for me in exchange, and on many occasions he attempted to rape me. I refused but one day he nearly raped me, and was only prevented from doing so because I screamed. This alerted the next-door neighbours who came to see what was going on. That is when I stopped working as a maid». Florence’s husband then encouraged her to follow a course at Chengetanai, as this would enable her to supplement her husband’s meagre salary, and also equip her with the necessary skills and confidence to look for better employment at a reasonable salary. It would also enable her to protect herself against any untoward advances by a future employer.
Mr Helarious Ruyi is Assistant General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Domestic and Allied Workers Union. He says his union is working towards the creation of an Employment Council for domestic workers, which would assist them in bargaining for better wages, compared to the meagre earnings they are currently getting. The union is using the electronic media to educate people about their rights and responsibilities at the workplace.
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