Youth
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The Lagos State government is fighting the abuse of house helps in the society by sensitising the public on the evils of domestic violence on women and children
| By Chinwe Okafor | Feb. 10, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT
IFEOMA Onu, 14, is a teenager who hawks wares at the Oshodi market. She makes sure she sells out whatever wares she has for the day before returning home otherwise her aunt would not give her food for the day. She is already a popular girl within the axis of the Oshodi market. She is not happy with what she does because she told Realnews that while her mates go to school every morning to learn, she was always on the road selling wares for her aunt.
“I wished I could have my way to go back to my mother in the village and continue managing with her rather than come out on the road every morning to expose myself to danger. Since the death of my father, things have not been moving fine with my mum. So as the eldest of all I suggested to her that I would like to stay with my aunt who is an extended family member. My mother declined at the initial stage but on seeing that she couldn’t cope with training me and my other siblings, she accepted that I should go with my aunt,” she said. According to Onu, the marks on her body were inflicted on her by her aunt. She said that she dare not go back home without selling all the wares she had, else she would receive the beating of her life.
The story of Onu is similar to that of another house help identified as Angelina, even though the latter’s case is worse. Angelina, 11, lived with a middle-aged woman, identified as Madam Agnes who beat her to death. Madam Agnes has been arrested is now being detained at the State Criminal Investigation Department, SCID Panti. She had lived with the victim for seven years. Realnews gathered that Angelina was made to carry out overwhelming house chores and that she often suffered harsh beatings in the hands of her abusive guardian.
Like many poor Nigerians in rural areas, the little girl’s parents in Ogoja, Cross River State, handed their daughter over to Madam Agnes when she was only four years old. The murder suspect had at the time promised to act as a guardian for Angelina and give her an education in the big city.
There are other countless Onus and Angelinas out there. They are treated as modern day slaves and servants and they work in exchange for where to lie on and what to eat. Unfortunately, they are subjected to all kinds of in human treatment such as severe beatings and abuse in the hands of their so called madams. Poverty plays a significant role in the plight of these young ones and they remain neglected by the government and often abused by the society. It is usually this promise of living a better life in towns that lure many parents to give out their children to extended family members or to unknown people who live in larger towns. They come hoping to leave behind the hardships of ‘village life’ and make something of themselves in the city, but often times find even more hardship in the promise land.
These experiences are only a few of what house helps suffer. Many middle and upper class Nigerians treat their domestic staff such as housemaids, security guards, drivers, gardeners as slaves or second-class citizens. Some of these house girls are also sexually abused. Ajoke Ogunsanya, a businesswoman, said some house helps are sexually abused by their madam’s husbands or relations and even if some of them know, they feign ignorance. This is why Ogunsanya urged women to empathise with such girls to know how they feel.
“Young girls are forced to abandon their education because their family cannot afford to pay their school fees and are uprooted from their family and sent to the city to work for a strange family. Scared, lonely, sad and homesick, they have to stomach all those emotions and get on with it and endure working from sunrise to sunset everyday of the week. If they get really lucky, they end up working for a nice family that will treat them well. But if not, they are treated harshly by everyone in the family, from the boss down to the children and they dare not complain,” she said.
This ugly development has prompted the Lagos State government to take up the fight against domestic violence. It has also started running awareness campaigns in the media, calling for reports on incidents of domestic violence to the police or the ministry of women affairs and poverty alleviation office. Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire, deputy governor and acting commissioner for women affairs and poverty alleviation, Lagos State, said that the state government was determined to do everything within its powers to eliminate domestic violence against women and girls as well as protect child’s rights by strengthening laws that protect them.
She said that the unacceptable incidence of violent crimes against women and children was becoming rampant in the society and that government at all levels should take drastic measures against the crude act in order to bring peace to the society. According to her, violence against women and children had become one common way by which human rights are violated with negative consequences on families and the society at large.
“As part of the Lagos State government’s efforts to tackle the menace, my ministry in collaboration with the office of public defender of the state ministry of justice is working together to ensure that culprits are apprehended and justice done at no cost to the victims. The state, through the ministry of women affairs and poverty alleviation and the ministry of justice, have provided free legal services to women and children whose rights have been violated, while offenders are being sanctioned; we have also established homes for victims of domestic violence and they serve as temporary abode for victims of violence before they are reconciled with their families,” she said.
Similarly, Funmi Falana, national leader and chairperson, Women Empowerment and Legal Aid, WELA, said violence against women in public and domestic life had continued to increase, as cases of rape and spousal murder had also become very rampant in the society. “Domestic violence in most cases are being perpetrated against women and children and sometimes men in the hands of their wives but the common forms of violence in the home are perpetrated by males who are in positions of trust, intimacy and power over the female partner, like husbands, boyfriends, fathers, fathers-in-law and mothers-in-law, step fathers and step mothers, uncles, among others,” Falana said.
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