S2E5 - The Househelp Arrangement

The one about domestic workers and cultural nuances.

Did you grow up in a house with live-in help? How many? How much do you remember about how they were treated? How much about them did you know? When did they finally leave? Did they run away? 

Here’s the thing, UNICEF considers domestic work to be among the lowest status and reports that most child domestic workers are live-in workers and are under the round-the-clock control of their employers.

According to one of its reports, “A staggering 15 million children under the age of 14 are working across Nigeria”.

They are generally children from very poor homes, whose parents cannot afford to send them to school or train them in a particular profession or trade.

Nigeria’s laws regarding the minimum age of employment are inconsistent where the Child Rights Act prohibits those under 18 from working, yet the Labour Act sets the minimum age of employment at 12.

So we thought it was worth throwing a bit more light on domestic workers and cultural nuances surrounding the “industry”. 

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Timestamps

• [00:30] - Setting the context
• [03:24] - Our experiences with live-in help
• [07:07] - The historical context of domestic work
• [09:41] - The middlemen and the "supply network"
• [14:32] - Our future plans concerning live-in help
• [23:06] - Underage domestic workers
• [25:03] - Decoupling the responsibilities/workload
• [25:46] - Were our parents "bad" people for having live-in help?
• [28:07] - Househelp or Modern-day slave?
• [34:18] - The abuse of domestic workers