If you get a chance to read, the ReadDown by Penguin House, please do so. It’s brilliant. I found The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Dare a compelling read.
Here is the blurb ” A powerful, emotional debut novel told in the unforgettable voice of a young Nigerian woman who is trapped in a life of servitude but determined to get an education so that she can escape and choose her own future”.
Having met a couple of Nigerians who were house helps, maids or domestic servants before, Abi Dare gives a voice to an industry that is akin to modern day slavery in Nigeria. These girls are usually illiterate or semi illiterate and they are also usually minors.The migration patterns appears to be from rural Nigeria to urban Nigeria. Poverty is a main cause for this type of servitude.
Child labour still exists in Nigeria. Today, there are an estimated 218 million children who work including 152 million who are engaged in harmful work – work that is mentally, physically, socially or morally dangerous and interferes with their education.
Much of it is not regulated so these house helps as they are commonly known are left to the whims of the house madam. If the Madam is the lazy, cruel sort, the house help would be traumatized daily.
Lets define servitude:
a condition in which one lacks liberty especially to determine one’s course of action or way of life
There is also the case of rape, sexual assault and domestic abuse that is the lot of house helps up and down Nigeria. Servitude exists in other parts of the world like India and in part of Asia. It tells immediately the class you are born into. Middle class families will have a help or two, a gateman and a driver. Usually, the driver and gate men are employed under better terms than the house help. Househelps remain a strong part of the patriarchal landscape of Nigeria.
With domestic servitude in Nigeria, you cannot rule out human trafficking.
Nigeria occupies a central position in West Africa as a country of origin, transit and destination for victims of human trafficking for labour exploitation and forced labour. Men, women and children from Nigeria are trafficked to Western Europe, the Middle East, and West and Central African countries. Victims from neighbouring countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Mali and Niger are also exploited in Nigeria in a wide range of industries, including domestic work, mining, stone quarrying, manufacturing, and work in farms and plantations.
Internal trafficking from rural areas to urban centres is also pervasive, particularly among women and children trafficked for domestic labour, agricultural work, farming, manufacturing, begging and sexual purposes. Between 2012 and 2014, 58% of detected victims of human trafficking were children, while 42% were adults. Children are often moved within Nigeria and abroad, ostensibly for the purposes of education but frequently with the result that children are placed in exploitative labour, such as domestic servitude. Children from other West African countries are also moved through Nigeria to work in forced labour Cameroon and Gabon, or are subjected to forced labor in Nigeria, including in granite and gold mines.
Au pairs in Europe are not similar as that industry is regulated and standard. In Nigeria, domestic servitude is bleak and will probably never end.
This book is provocative and interesting at the same time. Let us know what you think!
Read about Nigeria’s 60th Anniversary here.
