House Helps; Ghana’s Most Forgotten Children

With background in psychology and education, a professional preparation and passion for social work, a father and a strong advocate for improvement in protective child welfare services, I have for some time now been following how vulnerable children are treated in Ghana. I do policy analysis, scrutinize news publications and follow up on field work activities by both the government and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). I am thus very familiar with the plight of our children and the discussions to mitigate the suffering that these vulnerable children go through both at the policy and practice levels.

I have acquainted myself with the predicaments of our children in charlatan orphanages, those engaged in head porterage (“kayayei in Accra and “paa-o-paa” in Kumasi), children trapped in obnoxious child marriages and “trokosi” systems. I have also followed with keen interest services for children with disabilities, children living in abusive homes and/or serving as house helps and those who reside in rural areas. Children who are engaged in child prostitution and the trafficked children fishing on the Volta lake, as well as those farming in the maize/yam/garden-eggs producing areas (such as Nsawkaw, Offuman and their environs) are no strangers to me. I have also read a lot and have had personal interaction with some children engaged in child labor in the cocoa producing areas in Ghana.

The observation I have made is that children serving as house helps or domestic workers constitute Ghana’s most forgotten and neglected group of vulnerable children. All the other groups of vulnerable children mentioned above and those not cited here, have received and continue to receive some forms of attention and intervention from the media, government, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), religious groups, the international community and charitable individuals.

Just recently, for the concern which she has for vulnerable rural children and their families, a 29-year old Miracle Damanka, abandoned a very luxurious life in Accra, teamed up with other equally selfless individuals and moved to settle in a tiny Yabraso village in the Tain District of Brong Ahafo Region on the ticket of a small NGO (Partnership for Family Strengthening- [email protected] / 0206521125) which she formed herself for this purpose. Her team is engaged in what no other NGO has ever done in Ghana before. They are providing a wide range of direct support services for the very poor rural families and their vulnerable children. These services include legal aid, after school programs, economic empowerment, health education (including family planning counseling services), sex education and marriage counseling.

The activities of this NGO have recently attracted the attention of many well-meaning Ghanaians. These include the ace popular Ghanaian Kumawood actor, Kwaku Manu who plans to embark on series of fund raising events both locally and internationally on behalf of this NGO and the rural families being served.

Even though available interventions have not been effective enough to eradicate the excessive maltreatment that vulnerable Ghanaian children generally experience, their plight would have been worse without them. The interventions also serve as a reminder to these unfortunate, helpless and voiceless children that at least someone cares about them. I am not by any means insinuating that the other categories of vulnerable children are undeserving of the attention and the services they are getting. No, far from that. I sincerely believe and hope that people like Miracle and her small NGO could be supported in their work in providing help to children and their families in other rural areas such as Hiamakyene, Abekwai, Attakrom, Papakyeaye, Fabewoso, Degedege and many others. I am only envious and highly concerned about the fact that house helps are not attracting the kind of attention other vulnerable children are drawing to themselves even though they are in the same shoe and maybe worse one. This reminds me of a very popular verse in one of my favorite songs by the late contemporary High-Life Ghanaian music legend, Ahoofe Daasebre Gyamenah; “what is good for the goose is equally good for the gander”

That is, no one unfortunately, seems bothered about the plight of the children who are serving in people’s homes as house helps. Is it because they are hidden from public view? Meanwhile they are all Ghanaian children with big dreams, hopes and aspirations of becoming “big” persons in the future and deserve equal protection as enshrined in our 1992 Constitution. The paucity of research on this population makes it even harder to know the exact number of children hired as house helps in Ghana, which regions they are most concentrated and where they come from most and how they may be helped. Now, we can only fairly speculate based on personal and field experiences that they run into thousands. Globally, the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that at least 7.4 million children below the age of 15 are engaged as house helps.

Overwhelming majority of the children engaged as house helps are girls aged between 10 to 16 years old. A large proportion of them come from poverty-stricken families. A small number are single or double orphans. House helps are found in nearly every town and city in all the 10 regions of Ghana. But the situation is worse in big metropolitan business cities like Kumasi and Accra. It is a way of trafficking and enslaving innocent children by relatively wealthier and privileged individuals who are pursuing education, doing business, engaged in formal work and/or raising children. It has now become a multi-million trades, involving middle men. Ironically, some of these middlemen are women and mothers who better understands how it feels to have one’s child maltreated. These middlemen travel to the rural areas to prospect for potential girls, bring them to the cities and contract them out to other families to be exploited. The children are often enticed with very attractive rewards which never happen in most cases, anyway. Typically, the rewards come in three forms; a monthly salary, learning a trade or end of service package consisting of sewing machines, clothes and marriage-oriented cooking utensils.

Currently, around the Brong Ahafo Region, house helps who opt for cash payment receive an average of GHS 1.00 per day and ₵30 a month. This does not translate progressively to mean that if a child serves for 4 years, she/he would earn (₵ 1 x 365 X 4) ₵1,640.00. No, this is not the case. The remuneration that these children receive is capped at a maximum amount of between ₵ 600 and ₵ 800.00 regardless of the number of years they serve their mistresses and masters. Even just about 40% of the children end up getting this final compensation. Majority are unable to end their services honourably. The “contract” is usually disrupted through fracases and altercations with their hosts on issues that are real and/or perceived. Most of these problems center on little thefts of money, meat or food. Sometimes, the children are accused of inability to complete tasks on schedule, being lazy, disrespectful and/or engaging in sexual relationships with boys in the house or in the neighbourhood. When this happens, the girls are sacked or are tortured, leaving them with no other option but to abscond to engage in prostitution and/or head porterage. What saddens and sickens me most is that in negotiating the service contract and the conditions of service, it is not spelt out that in case of termination of the contract halfway, the child will forfeit her entitlement. For the sake of fairness, one would only expect that the children would be paid the cumulative amount of services rendered prior to their termination. Unfortunately, this basic tenet in contract agreement is blatantly violated because we do not as a country have any specific regulations and monitoring system that govern such contracts. And as we all know, matches without good referees hardly earn well. Back at Legon, my hall Sarbah Annex “B” (Okponglo---Okpomates) was once on the field with our then rivals, the Vandals. Before anyone could realize, the number of commonwealth players on the field had jumped from 11 to 15! They had sneaked in 4 additional players and had played us for more than 10 minutes. In the same jerseys, nearly equal heights, it required a very experienced and vigilant referee to detect these “illegal” players. Similarly, many dishonest persons have joined the rank and file of good-intentioned Ghanaians who are genuinely trying to offer some help on a kind of quid-pro-quo basis to children from deprived families.

What is more worrisome is that the condition under which many of these house helps work is quite despicable. In some cases, they prepare and serve meals to everyone in the house (including pets) but must wait till everyone has finished eating before serving themselves with the leftovers. They clean all rooms and make the beds but retire to spend the night in hallways covered up in pieces of rug that hardly reaches their feet. This makes them the most visible and vulnerable bodies for mosquitoes and rodents in the house. House helps have the least chances of being sent to hospitals when sick even though they may have health insurance coverages. Falling sick is seen as an excuse not to work. Hosts normally wait until the conditions of these children become so bad before sending them to hospitals at which point it may be too late for Doctors to save their lives. If the children are lucky to be alive, they are not allowed to go for follow ups or reviews and are denied the needed help in keeping to the advice from the physicians. The children are usually the last to go bed (around 10.30pm) in the house but the first to wake up (around 4.30am). They work from dawn to dusk with no time at all to engage in child free play, relaxation or leisure, three very important activities from which children learn the meanings of cooperation, competition, humility, defeat, creativity and friendship. They are simply denied the opportunity of being children and are forced to fast-forward their developmental process from infancy directly to adulthood. Cleaning the house, cooking, fetching water, childminding, washing of clothes, going on errands and petty trading represent only about 60% of what house helps usually do for the GHS 1.00 per day compensation they receive. When any little mistake occurs, these children are beating up, verbally abused and are denied food and/or meat for days. It is not surprising that the physical and mental health of house helps are typically very bad. They are more likely to suffer from malaria, headaches, gastroenteritis, dental decay, fatigue, stunted growth, anemia and confusion more than the general children population. Body bruises, cuts and sores are also more likely to be found on them due to the harsh discipline and corporal punishment they experience at the hands of their mistresses and masters. In fact, horrifying details about the increasing notoriety of the health effect of “house helping” can go on and on forever.

This follows that house helps generally lack parental love, attention and affection. Their dream of becoming “big” persons one day is completely shattered. All they face is a bleak and uncertain future. One painful fact we need to acknowledge is that there is an overwhelming consensus among experts that early stress in life such as abuse and neglect is associated with a wide range of psychological, behavioural and physical problems later in life. Illustratively, childhood adversities have been implicated in many serious and dangerous personality disorders such as conduct, anti-social and psychopathy or sociopathy. These conditions are generally characterized by hostility, aggression, deceitfulness, impulsivity, repeated engagement in illegal, callous and dangerous acts. They lack remorse, shame, fear and empathy. Though very charming, these individuals are pathological liars with an exaggerated sense of self-worth who are capable of killing. Prostitution, armed robbery and abuse of drugs also comorbid highly with these conditions. A few luckier house helps are allowed to attend school. Usually because of the psychological stress and trauma the children experience in the house and the physical barriers they face, most of them do very poorly in school. And this adds up to their dossier and woes in the house. It is because of children like house helps, that is why I personally applaud the introduction of the free education that has recently been introduced by the government and the free school uniforms, free school feeding, textbooks, scholarships and various goodies by the previous governments. If luck eludes these children and their hosts experience any unexpected financial and/or health problems, the children are blamed for using witchcraft to torment them. This exacerbates their problems. Despite all these problems, house help has now become one of the most common forms of child employment in Ghana today.

Paradoxically, Ghana is a signatory to many United Nations and Regional Conventions and protocols that aim at preventing child maltreatment. In fact, Ghana was the first country to ratify the United Nations Convection on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) on February 5, 1990. Being fully aware that harm done to children in their formative years is very devastating and difficult to reverse, all the other remaining 193 countries (that belong to the UN) have ratified this convention excerpt the United States of America. In pursuance to article 4 of the UNCRC, Ghana has made strenuous efforts to harmonize all its domestic legislations, with the spirit, principles and the provisions of the UNCRC.

The 1992 Constitution of Ghana, the Criminal Code Act (Act 554), the Children’s Act (Act 560), the Child Rights Regulations (The Legislative Instrument, LI 1705) are a few of the many legislative provisions in Ghana that have been put in place to protect children in Ghana from abuse. In sum, the UNCRC, and all Ghana’s legislations and statutes agree that every form of violence and abuse against children irrespective of why, where, when and how it occurs and who perpetuate it is extremely devastating, unjustified/punishable, preventable and needs to be stopped. The Children’s Act 1998 (Act 560), section 13(1) and the 1992 Constitution (Chapter 5: 28.3) make it very clear that no person shall subject a child “to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” including any cultural practice which dehumanizes or is injurious to the physical and mental well-being of the child. The Criminal Code (Amendment) Act 1998 (Act 554) also criminalizes the commission and/or omission of many forms of dangers to the child by anyone. In principle, all these acts endorse practices that promote the best interest of the child. At the institutional level, many changes have also occurred to help in the implementation of these legislations. Some notable ones are the establishment of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), the Domestic Violence and Victims Support Unit (DOVVSU) of the Ghana Police Service, the Ghana National Commission on Children (GNCC) and the Department of Social Welfare.

It is the existence of all these ministries, departments and legislations that is why I find it very perplexing, unacceptable and “unGhanaian” that children serving in people’s homes as house helps are allowed to suffer such unimaginable abuse under the disguise of “employment” without any serious effort to end it. What has happened to our FCUBE that these children who are supposed to be in school in the first place are in “employment”? It is a fact that the Children’s Act (Act, 560) explicitly allows “light work” at age 13, sets the minimum age of child employment at 15 years and prohibits “hazardous employment” for children below 18 years. The house help phenomenon certainly violates all these provisions and needs to be looked at with the urgency and the seriousness it deserves. These children we have today are no doubt our future presidents, teachers, doctors and MPs.

One major problem or irony that confronts house helps or domestic workers is that they are not technically considered workers and are thus not covered by the national labour regulations (from the Labour Act, 2003, Act 651). Consequently, house helps do not have any signed contract agreements, “right” to unionize, minimum pay rights, paid leave, social security and many other rights and protection that other “workers” in Ghana are entitled to.

Going forward, a solution could be found in a policy that will make it illegal for anyone to engage a child in any services that could jeopardize the mental and physical development as well as his/her access to education and health. At worst, the child should be placed in school or a trade while she/he provides some light domestic labor in return. To achieve this would require some form of registration with the district social welfare office before any person takes into his/her home a child domestic worker. It appears as a very complex thing to do but we have many thousands of young university graduates in the house who can easily be mobilized to augment the thin staff of the department of social welfare and charge them this specific responsibility.

Alternatively, private agencies could be assisted to recruit, train and place adult domestic workers with households that need help like what is done in the advance countries. In the meantime, the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP), can locate and partner grassroot NGOs which are actually on the ground. These NGOs can provide basic interventions and monitoring to house helps and their families until a more comprehensive legislative solution is found. At least, this project could be piloted like how the National Health Insurance started in a modest way. Districts like Banda Ahenkro and Tain District where the DCEs (Honourable Charity Akua Foriwaa Dwommoh-Tain & Hon. Mary Konneh-Banda) are women, mothers and so concerned about child rights could be made to pilot such a project. The tendency is that some districts and NGOs in Ghana are into decorative programmes and appear fantastic on paper and in the media but appear different and less responsive to the needs of their people on the ground. The people who need help most in such districts do not often receive help. In addition to Miracle’s small Partnership for Family Strengthening NGO that I know of, Resource Link Foundation ([email protected]) is another small NGO that is also working so hard in improving the lives of vulnerable individuals in remote areas of the country where others are prepared to go. Mr. Christopher Dappah, the director of Resource Link Foundation is extremely dynamic and he is able to work with a very small annual budget and thin staff to deliver so much for individuals who need help most.

In conclusion, all is not well with children employed as house helps in Ghana. They certainly need our support and we cannot afford to fail them. I am calling on the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP) to act and act urgently and empathically. Their plight illustrates a classic case of paradox; maltreatment in the face of enormous Ghanaian hospitality, hunger and deprivation amidst plenty.

The writer, Augustine Djan, is an Adjunct Professor and a Ph.D student in Social Welfare at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, USA. He can be contacted on adjan@ gradcenter.cuny.edu /WhatsApp 001 718 450 6845