Why has domestic labour among children exploded in recent years? Gihan Shahine looks into the lives of young house-helpers in search of an answer Samar, a 17-year-old girl who has been involved in domestic work since she was seven, has never been given the chance to play. "You know what? I've never seen the sea," Samar says with regret. Samar's eyes bespeak the inner bitterness of a childhood lost to labour, her face marked by poverty and deprivation. She pauses and peeps out the window she is cleaning as if in an attempt to grab a glimpse of a world of which she has always lived on the margins. "My parents never allowed me to play in the garden or even go anywhere," she continues. Samar lives with her parents and five siblings in a small rented flat in the impoverished irregular housing area of Ezbet Al-Haggana. She decided to quit school when still in the third year of primary, since she says she "learnt nothing at school anyway" and was not ready to live in the throes of poverty. Her story is typical of many young maids who seek domestic work in search of a better living. Samar does not regret her decision to work instead of study. Instead, she pours out her ire on "parents who have loads of children without having the means to give them proper care." "In our culture, parents do not care much about their children," she said in a sad tone. "They just have kids and then put them to work to help make ends meet." Samar's two elder sisters quit school and engaged in domestic work until they got married, while her younger brother is working with her father in construction work. "My father does not bear the costs of our marriages, and that is why we have to work to get bridal stuff," Samar said. Nobody forced Samar to work so early in life, but the only alternative was that she "would live on very little and unhealthy food, never get any new clothes even on holidays, and ultimately get married without a single saucepan in my trousseau." "In our culture, girls who get married without anything except their suitcases are looked down upon by their in-laws," Samar said. "That's why I decided to work early in life to get well prepared for that day and save myself a lot of humiliation." An ambitious young woman, Samar dreams of living in a big, well-furnished flat equipped with all the appliances that can help her have a decent life -- a home, that is, perhaps similar to that of her employer. Until very recently, Samar thought she was nearing her dream since she has worked hard since childhood, sometimes even over weekends. However, the catch is that Samar now has only a few pounds left in her savings, her mother having had to spend the rest to sustain the family. Even Samar's few remaining savings are the target of her father, who wants to invest Samar's savings in a project and would like to see her marry a well-off relative who lives in the countryside and would not cost Samar's father a penny for the marriage. Samar has resisted her father's marriage plans. But she finds it difficult to live with the fact that her savings have gone down the drain and she now has to work all over again to start from scratch saving for her marriage. She is also worried about her younger sisters who will be doomed to the same fate. "My father will probably force them to quit school to help with the family expenses," she regrets. "It's all so unfair." Samar is not alone. Nineteen-year-old Neama had similar frustrations when she realised to her shock that all the money she had saved for her marriage had been spent by her parents. "I worked hard since I was nine and had saved a lot of money, but then my parents took it all to help with my elder sister's marriage expenses. My father also had to stop work when he was ill and used my money for his treatment." A rebellious Neama decided to quit work when she started developing health problems of her own, and anyway she felt it was unfair to have to work so early in life. But when she got engaged, she realised her father could not afford the expenses of her marriage, and again domestic work was the only way out. The issue of child labour has long been the subject of study, and various policies have been tried to deal with it on the governmental and non-governmental levels. However, less emphasis has been given to domestic child labour, which, albeit now burgeoning into a phenomenon, has often been ignored or disregarded. Now, however, one group of researchers has decided to tackle the issue, by spending at least six months of field work interviewing young domestic workers, their families and employers in a rare study of the phenomenon. The study was conducted by the Centre for Migration and Refugee Studies (CMRS) of the American University in Cairo (AUC), and financed by the Swiss Embassy in Cairo. The survey found that child labour has spread, and an estimated two to 2.5 million children work as street vendors or in agriculture, construction, factories or workshops in Egypt. Child domestic labour, described by the study as one of the most widespread and perhaps worst forms of child labour, remains largely ignored. "The incidence of child domestic workers in Egypt remains significant enough to be addressed as a public issue," the report states, yet there are no reliable statistics of the number of those involved in this largely invisible industry. More important, perhaps, is the fact that young girls who leave home to work in housekeeping are not covered by existing labour laws or provided with social or legal protections despite the magnitude of the problem. Article 4 of Labour Law 12 does not regulate domestic work, which makes those engaged in housekeeping jobs among the most vulnerable groups of child labourers. "This kind of work is legally unrecognised, invisible, gendered and morally sensitive," said Ray Jureidini, one of the report's authors. Moreover, according to leading sociologist Samir Naiem, the government cannot design legislation protecting young domestic labourers, since this would be to admit that the problem exists. "It would be a real scandal because it would implicitly mean legalising child labour and thereby violating international conventions on children's rights," Naiem said. Meanwhile, the government cannot criminalise or prevent child domestic labour because it is largely invisible and is driven by severe poverty. Naiem insists that the issue of female child domestic workers should be considered in the larger context of child and human rights, which are anyway largely violated. "There are many laws protecting child rights, but they are hardly put into practice," Naiem told Al-Ahram Weekly. "Loads of children, for example, are employed in construction work in the new satellite cities in broad daylight and in absolute defiance of all labour and child-protection laws." According to estimates provided by the AUC study, there are at least 53,000 child domestic workers, mostly aged between nine and 17, in the three mainly rural provinces of Fayoum, Minya and Assiut, out of a population of 3.13 million households. The study unveils testimonies of sexual abuse among former child domestic workers, a serious risk for vulnerable children, but none of the young maids currently in service that were surveyed said they had been exposed to any kind of sexual harassment. The study did, however, document other forms of abuse that could sometimes include bad treatment or overwork, and in all cases the children's deprivation of a normal family life, education and play. Unlike in Cairo, where home services are expensive, child labourers serving in the countryside are very low paid, somewhere between LE100 and LE300 a month, and their salaries are often handed over to their families. None of the working girls quoted in the study said they had ever enjoyed a penny of what they had earned. Employers interviewed in the study said that domestic workers were asked to work between five and eight hours a day, but young working interviewees said working hours could stretch up to 10 hours a day and that they were usually asked to remain available round the clock. Poverty is the main reason why many families tend to send their daughters out to employment. All the girls interviewed in the study hailed from "disadvantaged rural families who send their daughters away because they are too poor to raise them and in the hope of making some money to help sustain the family." "It's done out of necessity. It's an issue of poverty," Jureidini said. Naiem puts it this way: "child domestic labour is a result of the violation of the children's parents' human rights to obtain decent jobs, good housing, education and health services." People who send their children to work in houses are mostly themselves already "unemployed, undernourished, uneducated, and all their social rights are severely violated in the absence of democracy and social justice." "Sending children to work in houses relieves the parents from the burden of satisfying their children's needs, while at the same time being a source of income to sustain the family. What else can poor families do, if their basic needs remain unmet? Domestic labour is a far better solution than prostitution or sex tourism." Naiem would not blame overpopulation for the increase in child labour. "Rather, it is the reverse," he says. In the absence of health or other forms of insurance, underprivileged families resort to having too many children who can work and sustain the family when the parents get older or cannot work. The increasing demand for child domestic workers may also have contributed to the growth of the phenomenon, the AUC study showing that many families preferred to have a live-in young worker who can be easily "moulded" and adapted to a household lifestyle. On a more optimistic note, perhaps, many interviewees in the study said they were happy to work in homes where they usually found a more "prosperous life" than that in their own homes. The study included testimonies of how employers educated child domestic workers in "morals, cleaning standards and personal hygiene," the report said. For her part, Samar told the Weekly that she had always hoped her parents would allow her to become a live-in domestic worker, rather than having to go home after work everyday. "It's definitely a better life," she said matter- of-factly. "My mother always said that it was good to work in homes, where perhaps good 'respectable' families would give me good food and clothing -- all besides making good money," Samar said. She tried working in a nursery and a factory before working in domestic service, but she earned little for very long working hours. As a domestic worker in Cairo, Samar gets between LE750 and LE800 a month, a far cry from what she would get had she been working in a home in the countryside. For her, working in homes is both more comfortable and more profitable than other sorts of work, though her mother only allows her LE20 a month for money and transportation. "I give all the money I earn to my mother," Samar said with a sigh. In conclusion, the study recommends a better census of child domestic workers in Egypt and calls for legislation to deal with it and other forms of domestic labour. For Naiem, however, the real solution is rooted in social justice and democracy. "It is the government's responsibility to design good social policies that guarantee children's rights and provide children and their families with proper care," he concludes.
