Mariaam Bhatti: Tales of a Domestic Worker
I was walking with a friend one evening along a beautiful, dimly lit O’Connell Street, heading home after one of our meetings with the Domestic Workers Action Group (DWAG), and talking about how, in the days before we were empowered, we used to think we really were inferior to our employers, and that only what they said was sensible compared to what we even thought in our own minds.
My friend told me how she remembered disagreeing to herself with what her employer had said if it did not feel right, but felt that it was impossible for her to express a different opinion. “Sometimes she would be clearly wrong about something but I would never challenge it,” my friend said. “I would think, ‘I’m only a domestic worker, how could I be right? And even if I was right, who would listen to or support me?’”
I think this is a question we should all ask ourselves in our everyday lives. Does it mean that those considered inferior or of lower social class have nothing to say? Or is it because of the way society is constructed that only people ‘above’ them have the power to speak – and be listened to?
My friend and I could only laugh together at this predicament – laughing so hard in fact that we had tears in our eyes and people walking past gave us funny looks. Wiping away the tears, I remember saying to her: “Can you imagine that? How deeply embedded prejudice has to be for people to start believing they are less human or important than those subjecting them to abuse? Do you realise how far we have come from to be the people we are today?”
On saying that, I could only recall my own experiences, and those moments of feeling inferior when I worked for my previous employer. Many times I was aware that things were not right, but what I lacked was the knowledge on which to base my arguments or to support my points when approaching her.
I remember one time, I asked my former employer for permission to scan my personal documents, including my ID and passport, that I needed to send to my relatives in South Africa just in case something happened to me or I lost everything. I had had this fear ever since she convinced me cunningly to give her my passport. She said she tasked a relative who lived in the house to scan the documents for me, as I was not allowed to use their computers or scanners at home. So I gave this person my memory stick and the copies I needed scanned.
The following morning I asked him for the copies and my memory stick back, but he said he had already given them to my employer. When I asked why he had did that, he told me he was instructed to do so by my employer. I couldn’t believe my ears, as I had not hidden what documents they were; she obviously wanted to see that they were really what I had claimed they were, and to save copies for herself.
I wouldn’t mind if she did that in case I ran away, but in an ideal world she had to ask me for permission. I knew she was wrong to do what she did, but I could not challenge her because I was ‘just’ her domestic worker; she kind of owned me, and she was highly educated, so where would I begin to challenge her wrongdoings?
Mariaam Bhatti is a member of the Domestic Workers Action Group and Forced Labour Action Group of the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland.
