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House girls: The human bit wanting
2007-01-21 10:36:10
By Editor
It is highly doubtful whether there are many housewives or mothers of fairly big families who, as the principal domestic affairs managers of households, are willing or ready to shoulder chores alone.
This is because the chores are many and thus both physically taxing and time-consuming. The person‘s performance is also bound to be poor.
So, house girls are hired to provide major
back-up to the lady managers, and cases where the latter are employed or engaged in business or other ventures, they shoulder the greater part of the burden.
A double advantage thus accrues to families: wives and mothers are relieved of punishing schedules and a virtually unmanageable workload, and family members enjoy services that they would otherwise miss or get only partially.
At the other extreme, however, it is highly doubtful whether there are many if any, at all girls who set out to embrace domestic service as a career.
It is apparent that the majority of those who end up in the “domestic household industry” are desperate livelihood seekers, like their hundreds of cousins who become barmaids.
Major features of the industry that make it unattractive, and yet inevitable as a form of relative salvation for several girls who could otherwise end up as destitutes, are low wages, a
hostile environment that in some cases borders on slave-like scenarios, and inconsiderate employers.
Stories are legion, of house girls being paid a monthly wage of as little as 5,000/-, employers withholding payment for several months and then kicking out employees without paying them a single cent, girls tied to a chain of chores stretching from dawn to midnight, severe beatings over trivial, human accidents like breaking a glass, and male members of families drafting them into love nay, sexual relationships.
Lately, a commercial phenomenon has arisen, of domestic servant agencies that supply house girls to needy families.
Commercial gain is apparently the driving force, and any pretence that those involved are service providers just cannot wash.
We can safely speculate that desperate job seekers pay a fee to the agencies that also charge customers to whom they connect the girls, and who, on their part, exploit them !
Our society attaches much premium on human values. If house girls relatively sincerely in some quarters and superficially in others are valued for their part in smoothening life in families to which they are linked as guest members, reciprocation is essential.
Their welfare should be addressed, and this would transform the industry into an attractive source of income and livelihood.
Perceiving them as sources of income for employment agencies, as well as toilers and objects of sexual abuse in households, runs counter to the human values that we orchestrate so much.
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