Domestic servants, in most homes in Nigeria, have become a necessity of sorts with some families engaging the services of more than one house-boy or house-girl. In this report, Rotimi Ige, writes on the various ways in which they are treated and how the domestic servants are getting their own pound of flesh.Popularly called boi-boi or omo odo inYoruba, dan aiki in Hausa, odibo in Ibo and a wide range of appellations in other languages in the country and worldwide, the word house help has become synonymous with most elite families in Nigeria.Traditionally in Africa, the practice of employing domestic servants otherwise called houseboy or housegirl, dates back to a long time. These days with parents becoming so busy, domestic help is more necessary than ever especially for educated couples, as often both parents work outside the home in professional jobs.According to the Child Welfare League of Nigeria and many other child related NGOs, Nigeria may have the largest number of child domestic workers in the world, since nearly every household has a child domestic servantat least the household of every white colar job employee. Most of these children end up being physically, emotionally, and if they are girls, sexually abused.Many domestic servants, some as young as seven or eight years old, are on duty round the clock, they never leave the house except when sent on errands by the Oga or madam, sleep on the kitchen floor, eat leftovers and have virtually no holidays or rest breaks, all over the little or nothing they are paid.Recruiting children as house-helps has also become a very lucrative business for some people who now go to the rural areas to recruit children from their parents and transport them to the cities. They then share them to different families who are not related to the children many of who do not care about their welfare. They promise the recruited children money and lure them to the cities. Once they find them jobs, little or nothing is ever paid to such children.In an interview with the Nigerian Tribune, one of such children, 11 year old Fatimot, who hails from Benin Republic, said that she had been in Nigerian since she was seven, and was yet to receive a penny for her services. She stressed that she had worked in different states in Nigeria and had been engaged by over six families previously. When asked why she didnt request to be taken back home, she burst into laughter, saying, where I go see better food like indomie and egg chop for my houseThis fear, according to a lawyer, Tosin Odanye, is responsible for the seeming lawlessness and inhumane behaviour that their employers exhibit. She said, it makes it hard to prosecute offenders in cases where the trafficked children would rather endure the excesses of their employers than seek help to return home. However, the law would not fold its arms and tolerate child trafficking and labour, Offenders must be brought to book.Some of the people may also, if the recuited children are girls, force sexual relations on them and in some cases, impregnate them. Such was the case of Mr Daniel Olapade.Mr Olapade, a journalist, came back home from a trip one fateful day to find out that his wife had engaged the services of a househelp. The girl, according to Mr Olapade, looked uncomfortable and restless. A few days later, he discovered that she had, at different times, been sneaking out of the house unnoticed. Upon questioning, he discovered that she had been impregnated by her handler and that he had been taking her secretly to see an abortionist. Unknown to them, she had been injected with certain chemicals, with the promise that the pregnancy would be aborted that week.That same day, I sent her packing. It simply means that that girl could have died in my house if anything had gone wrong, he fumed.According to the Executive Secretary of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Traffic in Persons and Other Related matters (NAPTIP), Barrister Simon Chuzi Egede, Those who engage children in this form of activities stand the risk of going to jail for 5 years. If you employ a child to do work that is so tedious that it will adversely affect his physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development, you risk going to jail.Egede said the phenomenon of child domestic labour in the country is currently a horrendous trend in trafficking of persons and said that the Act establishing the agency has criminalised the procurement of under-aged persons as child domestic servants outside their family circle.He said the negative impact of this ugly menace led to its being highlighted in the amendment of the NAPTIP Act of December 15, 2005, which specifically provides that no child (persons under the age of 18 years) should be employed as child domestic outside his or her family environment. The same provision is also captured in the Child Right Act and in the Labour Act, cap 198 law of the federation, 1990.Barrister Egede said that the NAPTIP law (as amended in 2005) is very emphatic that no child under the age of 18 should be employed as domestic servant outside his or her family environment .According to him, the essence of this section of the Anti-trafficking law is to fortify the rights of the child and to ensure full mental and physical development of the child. It is not meant to destroy our cherished African traditional fostering system but to supplement the African value for the weak and vulnerable in the society. The basic assumption of the law is that the child within the family environment would be faithfully catered for while the ones outside the family environment may be exposed to abuse, deprivation and above all exploitation, he said.Egede said that children less than 18 years must be protected with their education and future guaranteed, without being subjected to harsh conditions of servitude. He said that the agency is concerned that trafficking of children for child labour has become a common feature in all states of the federation with only the degree varying from state to state.He added that there were several cases of intercepted lorry loads of children on their way to servitude. For instance in 2007 a vehicle with 67 children from Edati Local Government, Niger State was intercepted and brought to NAPTIP.While most individuals, NGOs and the federal government are neck deep into finding solutions to child trafficking, the trafficked persons have found a way to pay back their masters and society in their own coin. Taking into consideration the fact that the hired helps know almost everything about the day to day activities of their respective employers, they have engaged in a new form of defence or perhaps, gain for their many years of toil. This new vice has caught the entire society unawares and affected families have been paying haeavily for it.As reported by some media organisations, Sharon Omolayo, a charming five-year-old pupil of Avi Cenna International School, Lagos on December 13, 2010 disappeared without a trace. She was meant to be picked up from school by the familys house-help, Oluwadare Akanmu, now in police custody as a prime suspect in the crime. Sharon has become another victim of a vice that has found its way into the crime lexicon of our country.The young girls disappearance was puzzling. Her parents, family and friends could not sleep in the harrowing hours their daughter went missing in the custody of a man they had helped and harboured for many years. On the seventh day, the family received an anonymous call from her kidnappers to pick her up from outside Lagos.She was alleged to have been snatched by the houseboy who planned to phone her parents a few days later and ask for a ransom of N500,000. But his partners backed out and he panicked. So he phoned her dad to come and pick them up at Ifo, Ogun State where he confessed to the crime. The Sharon kidnap saga, while it lasted held Lagosians spellbound. A child in the custody of a trusted family member suddenly disappearing, left many people wondering whom they should trust with their children.Elite Lagosians love to hire paid servants to take care of their children and do house chores in a city where a busy work schedule has kept parents out of homes. Children who live in these dysfunctional families hardly know their parents; most of who leave home very early in the mornings only to return late at night when the children are asleep. And this cycle continues all year round for these absentee parents. To make matters worse, when domestic workers are hired, background checks are never done on them. So when they commit a crime, they would vanish without a trace. In the case of Sharon Omolayo, the conniving houseboy is known to the family, which is often the case with most domestic crimes. Domestic servants like drivers often connive with mechanics; they sell household items without the knowledge of their employers.In extreme situations such as the Omolayos case, they have been reported to betray their masters into the waiting hands of armed robbers! It is always a case of sleeping with the enemy when defining the domestic worker-employers relationship.The Omolayos case also brings to the fore security concerns in our school system. The challenge before school authorities is how to keep our schools and children safe in an increasingly hostile environment where crime such as kidnapping and other abuses against minors now occur frequently. The kidnap saga also highlighted the power of the social media in raising awareness through the internet. Kidnapping should not be allowed to thrive in Nigeria. In the latest case, the question arises, How well do you know your domestic servants
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