The Sunday Mail
Veronica Gwaze
Domestic helpers have become an integral part of most urban households as parents spend their time away fending for the family.
Busy schedules leave most parents with little or no time to spend with their families. Thus, in reality, domestic helpers spend most of the time with the children.
While some childminders diligently perform their duties, unfortunately others are the abominable creatures that every parent dreads.
Shocking
According to Childline Zimbabwe, most children are exposed to various forms of abuse by housemaids.
At least 381 823 cases of various forms of child abuse by domestic workers were recorded through the organisation’s national helpline and drop-in-centres from January to May this year.
The cases included sexual, physical and or verbal abuse.
Worryingly, other organisations observed the same trend.
Plan International Zimbabwe (PIZ)’s child rights, protection and safeguarding technical lead, Samuel Mandiwana, said they registered a 30 percent jump in the number of children being abused by housemaids. There are fears some cases even go unreported.
Childline Zimbabwe humanitarian and knowledge manager, Herzel Mukandi, said 95 824 cases were recorded in April this year alone, compared to 67 587 in the same period last year.
Revealingly, most of the perpetrators were domestic workers.
“Fifty-eight percent of the perpetrators were people living in the same household as the children, mostly domestic workers,” said Mukandi.
It is believed that the inordinate amount of time parents are spending away from their families was creating room for minors to be preyed on by helpers, most of whom lack professional childcare training.
Currently, PlZ and Childline Zimbabwe are conducting an assessment programme to uncover cases that might have gone unreported.
Culprits
Last year, 18-year-old Hazvinei Katanda appeared before the court on charges of aggravated indecent assault and performing indecent acts on her employer’s eight-year-old daughter.
That same year, another 40-year-old maid was slapped with a 30-year sentence for indecent sexual assault after forcing herself on her employer’s 10-year-old son and deliberately infecting him with a sexually-transmitted infection (STI).
Earlier this year, a Shamva woman working in Harare was dragged to court for allegedly having oral sex with her employer’s three-year-old child.
This is just a tip of the iceberg!
Experts opine that some domestic helpers are natural perverts or paedophiles, while others are naturally cruel.
Abusing children can be a domestic worker’s way of getting back on her employer for ill-treatment or being underpaid. Some domestic helpers are graduates who struggle to secure employment elsewhere and in turn settle for readily available options, which frustrates them.
Cheredita Mudzamiri, a mother of one who is employed as a secretary at a local company, reckons employers should create good relations with their workers to safeguard their children.
“We also need to give them some benefits to boost their morale, which makes them feel appreciated. I have had the same house-helper for two years now. I always make her feel that she is part of us and we are happy,” said Mudzamiri.
“I used to think that as an employer I had to be tough on the maid and that she should never feel comfortable in my home. After attending a ladies conference at church in 2017 where we had lessons on the treatment of domestic workers, I corrected myself and a lot changed between me and her (maid),” adds Evelyn Sigauke, a nurse and mother of three.
Signs of abuse
Apparently teachers have not only been invaluable for teaching children, but sniffing out and exposing these egregious crimes as well. This is because they equally spend a fair share of time with children.
Communities also help tip-off authorities.“ Abuse, be it physical, verbal or sexual, often changes a child’s behaviour and unfortunately most parents do not take time to closely study their children through each development stage,” notes Rumbidzai Mawoneke, an Early Childhood Development (ECD) teacher.
“Some of them become withdrawn in class, while others adopt weird behaviours like becoming violent to their schoolmates — things that we quickly observe through daily interaction with them.”
Television personality and social commentator Dr Rebecca Chisamba believes that most parents are subconsciously neglecting their children and exposing them to abuse.
“Most children spend most of their time with domestic workers while parents are away, and it is sad that the maids often become the perpetrators.
“Parents need to create time and bond with their children so that if anything happens, they open up quickly because in some cases, children are abused for years and they cannot speak up,” she said.
Background checks, Dr Chisamba added, were important before one is engaged as a domestic helper.
“Employers also need to create good relations with their maids. They tend to vent out their anger on children.”
University of Johannesburg researcher and psychologist Dr John Ringson argues that a child’s adulthood is shaped by developments in infant stages.
“Most of these issues are taken for granted because people do not realise there are long-term effects to this. As one gets older, these events begin to haunt them, especially if they were not given proper counselling, they also begin to develop some behavioural patterns that point to a bad experience in the past,” he said.
Law
Zimbabwe National Council for Welfare of Children national director pastor Taylor Nyanhete emphasises the need for an upward review of sentences for perpetrators. “More deterrent sentences will reduce repeat offenders and serve as an example to others,” he said.
“Most of the housemaids hired through bogus agencies are the ones behind these abuses. Before hiring, there is need to check if the potential housemaid has a criminal record or not; check their history and even draw up contracts.”
Sentences against child sexual abuse, for example, are considered to be relatively lenient compared to other jurisdictions in the region. While the maximum sentence for statutory rape — which involves sex with children between 12 and 15 — is 10 years in Zimbabwe, in neighbouring Zambia the minimum sentence is 15 years and the maximum is life imprisonment.
In Uganda, the death sentence can be invoked in some instances for statutory rape for a girl under the age of 18.
In fact, the crime of statutory rape covers girls up to the age of 18 in the East African country. Section 19 of the Constitution provides for the State to “adopt policies and measures to ensure that in matters relating to children, the best interests of the children concerned are paramount”.
In 2001, the country adopted the Children’s Act in order to domesticate the various international standards insofar as the care and protection of children in Zimbabwe is concerned.
The law replaced the Children’s Protection and Adoption Act.
