Mariaam Bhatti: Tales of a Domestic Worker
My eyes followed the immigration officer’s hand as he placed a finger on the button to ring the doorbell at my employer’s house. A few seconds later, a shadow crossed the little glass window on the door – there she was. She opened the door slightly, looked at the officers, then at me. I was still in the same clothes I wore when I had left three days before. “Yes?” she questioned, in her unfriendly manner.
I wondered what kind of a person she was. Did it not bother her that her childminder had gone missing? That I had just left with just a small handbag, not warmly dressed in that snow that left schools and businesses closed for days? No text or call from any of them to check if I was okay?
My employer had no time to think of what to do after the officers introduced themselves. I saw her hands pulling the door open wide. It was like a scene from a movie for the first few moments as the officers bombarded her with questions. Meanwhile I squatted to lift up the 18-month-old little girl who ran to me. As she lifted her arms to me, how could I resist that sweet innocent gesture? I lifted her up and gave her a little snuggle but her mother quickly whisked her away.
One of the officers followed me to my room, where I packed my bags; it only took a few minutes. I also had the opportunity to talk to the eight-year-old; she pulled me by my hand behind a curtain in the living area and whispered in my ear: “Are they your new employers?” She eagerly waited for my response, wearing a little smile and looking right into my eyes. I smiled back and said: “Yes.”
When the officers were done with my employer, I asked her if I could talk to her in private aside. “No, talk here!” she snapped. So I did. “Could I have my salary?”
“What salary?” she said, as if she didn’t know. “Today is the 30th and you pay me monthly for looking after the kids,” I said firmly. She looked away. “My husband will phone you.”
“I may be getting deported tomorrow or even tonight and I have no cent on me, I won’t even have money to take a taxi home on arrival there, and that does not bother you?”
My eyes started welling up and my voice was shaky, but she had no compassion. “I said my husband will phone you!”
How cold and cruel does a person have to be to feel that it’s right to work somebody like a mule and talk to them like they are subhuman and then add insult to injury by not even paying them a cent for a full month’s work? How does such a person sleep at night?
To be continued...
Mariaam Bhatti is a member of the Domestic Workers Action Group and Forced Labour Action Group of the Migrant Rights Centre Ireland.
