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Child maids in Morocco

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In Morocco human rights groups are pointing out the use – and abuse – of children as house maids. They say each year thousands of girls from poor families are sent to work among the wealthy. The World’s Gerry Hadden reports from Casablanca.

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KATY CLARK: In Morocco, human rights groups are protesting the use of children as house maids.  They say each year thousands of girls from poor families are sent to work for the wealthy.  Often they’re abused and exploited.  The government is considering measures to outlaw the child maids, but so far it hasn’t taken action.  The World’s Gerry Hadden reports from Casablanca, Morocco.

GERRY HADDEN:  When Hadeeya Arhenowee was 8 years old, her poor family sent her to Casablanca to work as a servant for people she’d never met.  She explains that her dad got into financial trouble, so he got in touch with an intermediary who looks for child maids.  Arhenowee says she agreed to go, wanting to help her parents.  But being a maid wasn’t what she expected.  Her host family beat her.  When she asked to call her parents, she was threatened with further harm.  She says, “I suffered a lot.  I slept in the kitchen with another maid.  We were badly fed.  My hands were scarred by bleach from scrubbing the floors.  I finally managed to leave with the help of intermediary who recruited me, but my parents sent me back.”   There are thousands of child maids in Morocco.  No official numbers exist, but one non-governmental organization called Bayti, has counted 23,000 in Casablanca alone.  L-Hamil Amina is Bayti’s director.  She says the vast majority come from the countryside, where people have little income and a lot of kids.  If they send a girl away, that’s one less mouth to feed.  Plus she can send money home.   “And the parents,” she says, “think they’re doing something nice for their daughter, that they’re saving her from the tough conditions in the countryside where there is no electricity and so on.  The parents think that at least their daughter will be fed in the city.”    Bayti works to educate poor parents about the reality of child maids and their exploitation.  It also runs programs to sensitize the wealthy families as to the rights of their underage charges:  to fair treatment and pay, and to an education.  But the hurdles are daunting.  Morocco’s faltering education system itself encourages the child maid phenomenon, Amina says.  Especially outside the cities.  She says, “In rural areas, the schools are too far from people’s homes, so often the parents take their young children out of school and they start working or they get sent away.  So we have to restructure the countryside.  Bring schools closer.”  And fund them better, Moroccan education experts say.  Azadine Akezbi is with the National Institute of Education Planning.  He says many public schools, even in the cities, lack basic supplies such as books.  Teacher absenteeism is high.  But, he says, even more discouraging for the parents is the relationship between schooling and jobs.  In Morocco, he says, the better educated you are the less chance you have of finding work.  For university graduates, for example, the unemployment rate is between 30 and 35 percent.

AZADINE AKEZBI:  Those who leave school at primary school or with no education at all, it’s at 10 percent.  It is difficult, but I can understand why some families are not even thinking of keeping kids in school:  because it’s risky and costly to keep them there.

HADDEN:  Economic development and better public education are key tools to discouraging the use of child maids.  But Abderrahim Sabir has another suggestion:  tougher laws.  Sabir is an expert on child labor with Human Rights Watch.  He says for years the Moroccan government has been toying with legislation to make it illegal to employ somebody under the age of 15.  But, he says, the Kingdom appears in no hurry to take action.

ABDERRAHIM SABIR:  The subject matter is not viewed as a priority. There are other priorities, such as terrorism and this and that.

HADDEN:  Sabir says Morocco’s child maid problem is serious.  But, he points out, that at least Moroccan Civil Society is talking about it.  In neighboring Algeria or Tunisia, for example, human rights workers are not allowed to investigate the issue.

SABIR:  This is a worldwide phenomenon.  I mean, we find it, at least from the Human Rights Watch perspective, even in democracies.  In India.  And nothing is being done to put an end to it.

HADDEN:  And something should be, he says, because the child maids often end up suffering twice:  as kids and adults.  When they grow up, they often become prostitutes, or single mothers like Hadeeya Arhenowee, whose prospects for work are slim.  But Arenhowee is one of the lucky ones.  Through Bayti, she now lives at a shelter for former child maids.  She says she likes the shelter where she’s learning cooking and hair dressing.  For the first time since she was 8 years old, she says, she’s found a place to rest.  For The World, I’m Gerry Hadden, Casablanca, Morocco.

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