In the average Kenyan household, domestic workers (house-helps), play a very important role. They help alleviate the burden of the employer by doing chores that they cannot fit into their more demanding schedules.
In Kenya, nearly everyone, except the very poor, hires domestic help. The Kenyan government and other groups studying the issue estimate that almost 2 million households in Nairobi alone employ nannies, cooks, maids and gardeners.
However one cannot help notice the cultural stigma that surrounds domestic workers. They are seen as uneducated and unskilled.
The domestic worker is not valued or viewed as a person with needs, feelings or desires. They are not seen as individuals with lives outside the services they are hired to perform but are servants who should be seen and not heard.
Domestic workers, regardless of age, are still referred to as “house girls” and “house boys,” and are often subjected to abuse and exploitation by their employers.
This mistreatment comes in many forms including emotional, financial, physical and sexual abuse and varies in severity across the country. Employer mistreatment of their domestic workers is alarmingly common.
In some households, domestic workers are not given food by their employer, their identity cards are confiscated, they work from the wee hours of the morning till late at night, they are underpaid and risk having their pay docked or denied over the tiniest mistake.
Many of them are put in danger by the employers, for example locking them in the house when the employer leaves puts them at risk of being unable to escape if there is a fire.
In the case of illness, they are denied time off to go visit the doctors and in most cases cannot even afford healthcare. Of course not all employers are this callous, but statistics show that an estimated 70 percent of employers in urban centres alone are underpaying and overworking their staff. So clearly, therein lies the problem.
Domestic work is an acceptable line of work, but it is not a career most girls would willingly choose to pursue. Most of these young women are either orphaned, destitute or from families facing conflicts or too poor to support their education.
Poverty stricken families send their children to towns to look for employment but since they are illiterate or undereducated, they are unable to secure well paid employment, which in turn opens them up to exploitation.
Many orphaned or abandoned children that are taken in by their relatives to “assist round the house” end up being subjected to modern day slavery.
Because 4 out of 5 domestic workers is female, they are likely to face sexual assault and abuse from the male members of the employers family. There are several cases of husbands, and sometimes sons, sexually harassing and assaulting domestic workers.
Most likely the domestic worker has little access to alternative sources of livelihood because of poor education and a lack of other vocational skills, therefore will remain in employment situations in which they are being abused just to ensure their survival.
Women already have a difficult time even speaking up against sexual harassment and other gender based violence because of the consequences that come from it, but because of the low regard that society views domestic workers, they are likely to face even more stigma, ridicule and victim shaming when they speak up against their employers.
They may not even have access to social media, thus have less access to avenues that they can use to expose their employers or even seek comfort for their trauma. Employers are able to shame and bully the employee into silence because speaking out means the possibility of stopping the flow of income.
If they do speak up, their employers are able to cover up their stories and will be automatically believed because of their raised position in society. Employers are in a more privileged position than their employees and can use this structural power to silence them.
If a domestic worker does manage to follow the proper avenues and files a report, the police will require a witness to confirm the incident. In cases where a domestic worker is making such a claim, finding a witness would be difficult as they are normally left alone to tend to the households as their employees go to work.
They are also likely to not get results from the police, as their employers are in a better position to bribe corrupt officials or use suspicious means to get rid of the story.