Behind closed doors

Child domestic workers are virtually invisible, only coming in the public eye when tortured or murdered. More than 40 have died in the last seven years. What number will propel the government into action?

Her crime? Accidentally spilling milk meant for her employer’s children.

Eleven-year-old Sobia’s traumatic story opens in a posh locality in Lahore, where she used to work full-time as a maid, living in a small, dingy quarter in the premises, largely looking after the employer’s children. Together with her eight-year-old brother, Abbas, who was also employed at the same house, they used to make Rs12,000 a month for their family.

Sobia lets her mother tell her story. The abuse started off verbally and gradually became physical and more intense. One day, in a fit of rage, the baji of the household, smacked Sobia with a wooden ruler, and shoved her against a wall causing a head injury.

Sobia’s mother rushed to the scene. “Even while her head wound was bleeding, baji didn’t flinch. Nor did she pay us. I had to take Sobia to the hospital to get stitches but baji was yelling even when we were leaving,” she bitterly recalls.

Alina* was the same age as Sobia, when she experienced gruelling violence at the hands of her former employer, a school teacher at the other end of the city in Shahdara.

Even four years later, she is cautious as she shares her story. “Another girl used to work there with me too. Once, she was making chapatis and they didn’t come out quite right. Baji liked her chapatis round and cooked to perfection. She would be out the entire day so she was very particular about her food,” she pauses as her voice trembles.

What happened next is easy to guess. “She hit both of us with the tongs we used for chapatis.It stung more because they were still hot,” she reveals.

Often, she would think of her life back at home with her younger brother who would playpakran pakrai with her. Here, in contrast, her routine allowed no time for her to just be a child. She would get up at 6am and sleep at 2am after massaging her baji’s feet for hours on end suffering through physical and verbal blows all the while.

Baji, Urdu for elder sister, is normally used by domestic workers to address their female employers. Across the border, in India, Didi is more common. Stanford cognitive scientist Lera Boroditsky’s work based on research conducted across cultures in the world, emphasises the causality between lexicon and the way reality is constructed and experienced. “Research shows us that the languages we speak not only reflect or express our thoughts, but also shape the very thoughts we wish to express. The structures that exist in our languages profoundly shape how we construct reality,” she emphasises.

Addressing one’s employer as one would address an elder sister leverages the trust and sense of protection that serves as the basis of familial bonds to the relationship. The employer is seen as extended family. And inside most Pakistani homes, ‘light’ forms of physical abuse to children by elders is misguidedly considered normal, at times even necessary for effective disciplining. When it happens to child domestic workers at their workplaces, however, the trauma is amplified by dissonant cognitions: the employer is not related to them by blood, this is a professional relationship but baji is supposed to love them like family.

In reality, the common practice is that the employers and employed do not share kitchen utensils and bathrooms. They do not get a seat at the same table. And even this flimsy façade crumbles unceremoniously at the mighty blow from the benefactor’s hand.

“I treated them like my own children. They would get my children’s [old] clothes and eat the same food as us. But these people are so thankless and disrespectful. They are literally starving at their homes, they leave this place [my home] fattened. I have trained young boys and girls so many times, but by the time I can finally put up my feet, they want to go back,” says a 33-year-old professional and a mother of two who is a recurring employer of children as domestic help.

“I have never hit them but I think no one wants to work these days. They always want to leave for greener pastures,” she adds. Her 14-year-old maid quit recently and she has been struggling to hire new help. Her criterion remains the same: a teenage maid, between 12 to 18 years of age. “Those are easier to train because they haven’t fully matured yet,” she remarks.