Ogbuagu Anikwe suggests social and legal safeguards to save the girl child serving as maids from abusive moms in Nigeria.
From experience, … the biggest driver of maid abuse in Nigeria is poverty. Except in few cases where wives take in their sisters to help them cope with childcare and house chores, most domestic workers are recruited from the fringes of society. They are vulnerable children from poor homes, given out in hopes that their “employer” will educate and train them to become useful members of society, able to alleviate the sufferings of their parents. The parents’ expectations are dashed when a girl child meets a monster mom.
Ogbuagu Anikwe
Maid abuse is an existential problem that requires drastic social and legal safeguards, especially for the girl child living under slave-like situations in other peoples’ homes. Tragically, majority of the victims are female children attempting to escape the fate of parents trapped in a cycle of multidimensional poverty.
Unfortunately, most if not all of the abusers of these children are women, most often moms with children of their own. In a classic slave-master scenario, children of the poor become beasts of burden. Monster moms abuse, wound and traumatize children entrusted to their care without minding the consequences.
Last week, news of one more example of bestial behaviour from a monster mom came from Anambra State. A lawyer and housewife allegedly launched another deadly attack on a poor domestic servant, a mere child. According to a relation of the victim, the child’s “madam” used hot pressing iron to burn the girls face and buttocks, pressed it on her pubic region, and then inserted a hot knife into her vagina to create an ugly gash. The State government has reportedly taken custody of the battered girl. According to government officials, orthopedic and trauma surgeons are currently managing the patient at a public hospital.
The exceptions
We’ve read stories of child domestic workers subjecting the children they are minding to abuses and indignities. The abuses happen when the parents’ are out of the homes. What they did to the children are equally horrifying. Monster moms often use the stories of these errant children to justify the instant revenge on them, using and upscaling the same brutal tactics in a fit of rage. Although such cases are horrific and equally condemnable, they occur far and in between. But they do exist.
Ogbuagu Anikwe
I must admit that there are exceptions. The exceptions are bad behaving domestic workers and excellent couples who treat their child maid to become useful citizens. On the former, we read stories of child domestic workers subjecting the children they are minding to abuses and indignities. The abuses happen when the parents’ are out of the homes. What they did to the children are equally horrifying. Monster moms often use the stories of these errant children to justify the instant revenge on them, using and upscaling the same brutal tactics in a fit of rage. Although such cases are horrific and equally condemnable, they occur far and in between. But they do exist. There are equally happy endings. In one WhatsApp platform group to which I belong, a lady shared one such heartwarming story of a godly couple:
“A lady friend of mine got a Canadian visa to send her house help to her daughter who delivered of twins. She got there last year. Right now she is in school studying French language. The pictures she sent home were so touching. The girl has transformed into a budding young woman of class.”
I can also share the story of the one and only domestic help my wife and I ever lived with. She came to us when she was only six years old and started primary school from our home. She successfully completed high school and gained admission to a polytechnic to read accounting. In school, she met the man she married before she finished her National Diploma. She completed HND program before getting married because we insisted. Today, she is an aspiring chartered accountant, happily married and with children of her own.
Sources of maid abuse
It is now routine to read horror stories of these beastly moms who attack other people’s children with knives, hot water, electric irons and, sometimes, acid in their private parts. One can’t help but wonder what sort of women trained these monster moms – or from where they learnt their bestial behaviour?
Ogbuagu Anikwe
From our personal experience and the troubles we witnessed from some of our friends who were not so fortunate, the biggest cause of maid abuse in Nigeria is poverty. There are exceptions where where wives take in their sisters to help them cope with childcare and house chores. In most cases, however, families recruit domestic workers from the fringes of society. They are vulnerable children from poor homes, given out in hopes that their “employer” will educate and train them to become useful members of society, able to alleviate the sufferings of their parents.
Monster moms dash their expectations. In their hands, child workers suffer many forms of domestic indignities. They subject them to slave-like working conditions. In some cases, they compensate neither the children nor their parents for the back breaking work, added to the physical and emotional abuse they suffer on the job. It is now routine to read horror stories of these beastly moms who attack other people’s children with knives, hot water, electric irons and, sometimes, acid in their private parts. One can’t help but wonder what sort of women trained these monster moms – or from where they learnt their bestial behaviour? Other unfortunate female children also come under the radar of wicked husbands who subject them to another torment of sexual harassment.
Monster moms dash the hopes of child domestic workers for a life-changing opportunity. Instead, many are traumatized and scarred for life. This is why there is need for more effective social and legal safeguards to save the girl child in domestic service from our monster wives.
Suggested measures to save the girl child
Which brings us to the question: What social and legal safeguards did we forget to include in the Child Rights Act to save the girl child in domestic “employment” from forced exploitative labour and abuses? There are adequate provisions in this law to protect a girl child from physical, mental or emotional injury, abuse, maltreatment, torture, inhuman or degrading punishment, and attacks on her honor and reputation.
So, what else is missing? Why does it not become a deterrent to abusive moms?
As always, it is the enforcement that makes each law tame, coupled with ignorance. The advocacy for this law needs to be scaled up.
We also look to security agencies to enforce the law. However, the agencies cannot be effective without the cooperation of three key categories of human beings in close proximity to the abused child. These are the people that witness but keep mum while a child is passing through hell. Among them are relations who place children in domestic homes, neighbours of a monster mom, and the husbands.
The relations who procure and place children in homes as domestic workers are good people, wanting a better life for their relations in rich peoples’ homes. Most however do not recognize their total responsibility to the child, that they act in loco parentis to the child. A responsible guardian extracts an agreement to see and interview their wards at scheduled intervals. This reduces girl child abuses. When they fail to do this, shouldn’t they answer to the law for their negligence? The monster mom who knows that somebody who cares for the child is nearby will ship out a misbehaving servant rather than subject them to torture.
Husbands and witnesses
The second and third categories are two key witnesses to every child abuse situation. These are the neighbours and the husband of the abusive woman. Governments and NGOs should encourage neighbours to report domestic abuse of children. These agencies can incentivized them through good citizenship awards and recognitions.
Husbands’ negligence however requires a different approach. A husband that looks away while his wife abuses another person’s child is an accessory to the crime. He should bear joint responsibility for any punishment reserved for the wife, unless he can prove that he was absent from the house when the abuses happened. The point needs to be restated: When a monster wife mistreats another person’s child and the man of the house looks away, he is as much to blame as the person who launched an attack on the child.
Lets face it, husbands often contribute to the problem by not managing emerging issues in their family before they get out of hand. Therefore, if the law does not treat the husband of an abusive woman as an accessory to abuses she commits, I believe we should push for the man to bear part of the consequences.
Conclusion
I believe the time has come for Nigeria to outlaw taking in children as domestic helpers. We all know that this is child labour, and therefore an illegal act. The Igbo encourages this practice of sourcing domestic servants from vulnerable homes because it looks and feels like the female version of igba boi, the world-famous apprentice scheme for the boy child. The two positive examples given here demonstrate this as an opportunity for a vulnerable child to receive an education and good social training for life.
Unfortunately, the example from Anambra shows that most of the placements do not have this happy ending. The boy child often gets training and mentoring from the husband at factory and shop floors to succeed in life. His monster wife keeps the unfortunate girl child in bondage at his home. There is an urgent need to save the girl child domestic servant from the homes of monster moms.
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