Born an adult
While the eradication of child labour is high on governmental agendas, Dena Rashed discovers that the conditions of children who serve in the homes of the affluent remain neglected
Seeing Heba Kamal for the first time you would think she is barely nine- years-old, but she says she is 14. Heba is skinny, short and very pale. Her story is similar to those of many young girls who leave the countryside for the city, usually at the behest of their parents so as to earn money.
Heba came to Cairo to work as a maid for a family, but hers is a job without a description. No one discussed the requirements of her employment with her, and the list of tasks she actually does is practically endless. "I do the dishes and help in cleaning the house; I wash some of the clothes that require hand-washing," she said in a weary voice. She then recalls another duty, "I also go to the supermarket and buy the family the things they need." Her day starts early in the morning before the family wakes and lasts till late into the night.
Young maids accompanying children just a few years their junior have become commonplace at private sporting clubs in Egypt. Most clubs forbid entrance to the servants unless they are wearing a white coat to distinguish them from the children of members.
On a busy Friday night at a private club in Cairo, a group of girls ranging in age from eight to 11 are accompanied by a maid of roughly the same age who carries a toddler. The scene in the restroom looks awkward with the four young girls gathered around the maid as she struggled to change the diapers of the child. Although she acts as if she is in control, admonishing the young child not to move, she was having such a difficult time that she ended up swearing at the child.
But why would a mother hire a young child to look after her children? For Reham Adel, a former working mother of a nine- year-old girl, the decision proved a bad one. "I once had no option but to hire a young maid who was few years older than my daughter. The maid was very jealous of my daughter and started stealing her clothes and her toys," she said. "She was just another little girl who had every right to ask herself, 'why can't I enjoy life as she does?'" Adel vowed not to make the same mistake again. "The maids I later hired were all old enough to take care of my child -- they were usually over 18; besides it is a very sad thing to hire a child to do an adult's job."
According to a UNICEF report issued last year on the situation of women and children in Egypt, a 1991 survey showed that "over half of the employed children sought work to increase the household income or to support family enterprises, and that the wages of working children represented one quarter of total household income."
According to the Egyptian labour market survey conducted in 1998, 6.3 per cent of children from ages six through 14 work. As for their working hours, UNICEF wrote that a 1999 survey conducted in Greater Cairo found that "both male and female child workers worked an average of more than nine hours per day, and more than six days per week, both exceeding the work times of adults included in the same sample."
Last year, several cases of domestic violence against young maids came to public attention, but even so, much remains unknown about the children employed in domestic service. The most notorious torture incident was by an actress against a 15-year-old maid and came to light in 2001. That case put the matter of violence against young maids and their lack of protection on the media's agenda.
In fact, the newly ratified unified labour law continues a legislative tradition in Egypt of excluding domestic servants from protection. "The law states explicitly that domestic workers -- children and adults -- are exempt from the protection of the law for reasons that are absurd," argues Kamal Abbas, head of the non-governmental Centre for Trade Union Services (CTUS). "The proponents of this article argue that the privacy of the families would be violated, since domestic servants are privy to the secrets of the families they work for."
Although the reasoning is dubious, the legal exemption remains. Abbas added, the article "simply ignores that the relationship between the domestic worker and the family is that of an employee and an employer, which is what the law is supposed to regulate", Abbas added.
In spite of the existence of the child's law, passed in 1996 to protect children and which prohibits the employment of children below the age of 15 (with the exemption of non-harmful seasonal work for children 12-14 years of age) employment of young house workers remains beyond the reach of the long arm of the law.
Not all houseworkers need be completely unprotected. Adel explained that offices provide contracts, although only for the hiring of maids who are 15 or older. The contract is signed by the employer and the maid's father or mother, and notarised at a police station. Such a document typically stipulates salary, hours of rest and days off. However the younger maids still have no umbrella of protection.
For a young girl like Heba, the one luxury she enjoys while working for the family is a trip to the supermarket to buy candy. Heba does not see any of the money she earns: each month her mother picks up the girl's salary. Heba has not visited her family for seven months. "I can't go back, because I am afraid of my stepfather, who made me work in the first place; besides I've become used to living here," she added.
Although very shy, Heba was articulate enough to express her feelings and her opinions of her own family, although she was reticent about discussing her current life. She spoke wistfully about attending school up to the fifth year of primary studies when she was forced to leave. "I can read and write," she said, pausing, and with a gloomy look adding, "I could have been in my second year of middle school by now." In fact that would make Heba only 11 or 12-years-old. Although she claims she is sure she is 14, it remains a practice in some areas of countryside to forge girls' birth certificates in order to make them eligible for marriage at a younger age.
Heba no longer has the energy characteristic of other non- working children her age. She does not have fixed hours of sleep, not to mention enough sleep. "If I go to sleep late, I wake up late, it all depends on the work that I have to do," she said. "I am also helped by the family members when they are free."
Heba wishes to return to school, but she knows that is out of the question, "My mother depends on my salary," she said.
When asked what she wants to do when she grows up, Heba said she hoped to work at a shop. "I love selling things, it reminds me of the times I used to sell vegetables with my mother at the market, I also got to know and talk to many people," she said, and for the first time a shy smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. Her true smile shone out, though, when she spoke of how she uses her moments of free time. "Sometimes I am able to draw and paint; although I know my drawing is bad, I still want to draw, it's the thing that makes me happy," she said with a laugh.
Al-Ahram Weekly Online : 19 - 25 June 2003 (Issue No. 643)
Located at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/643/fe2.htm