How well do you know that house help who has taken over your home?

Who runs your home? Were a poll to be conducted today, it would probably reveal that most Kenyan homes are run by house helps.

Reason? Today’s parent is too busy building a career, pleasing a demanding employer, pursuing that must-have MBA, and when they have some time to spare, like the ambitious employees’ they are, they prefer to “network”, since it is good for their careers.

Sally Moraa is your typical working class mother and wife. On any given week day, she is out of the house by 6.30am, to beat the never-ending traffic jam. By that time, her two children - a three-year-old in kindergarten and a one-year-old, are still asleep.

It is therefore her house help’s duty to make breakfast and ensure the school-going child is dressed and has eaten breakfast by the time the school van comes for him at 7.30pm.

Moraa normally leaves the office at 5pm, and rushes to the university across town, where she is pursuing an MBA. The classes normally end at around 7pm. Depending on how bad the traffic jam is, she manages to get home at around 8.30pm, and that is on a good day.

By that time, her children who have already been given a bath and fed by the house help, are about to go to bed — there are days when she finds them asleep. Her husband, who has an equally demanding schedule, comes in later.

Such a scenario, says counseling psychologist Jane Onyango, is common among middle class families. “Nowadays, both parents work, meaning they have to get someone to help them with the day-to-day running of the home, and help with looking after the children,” she says. This someone is of course the house help.

Assists with homework
“If most working class women were to be honest, it is their help who decides what they will eat for supper, when shopping will be done, and even what will be bought, and when — some even determine what their employer will wear to work the next day,” says Ms Onyango

In many households, she notes, it is the house help who assists the children with the homework, even signing the diary. “One could therefore argue that these women, who are in many cases paid too little, have become surrogate parents to our children.”

Obviously, house helps are indispensable, and therefore in high demand. “Most women don’t bother to do a background check on the people they employ,” says Ms Miriam Waweru, who runs a house girl bureau.

Ms Waweru has been in the business for six years, and says most women simply walk into her office and inform her they want a “girl”.

“Many have no specifications; they just want someone who is ready to go with them at that moment,” she says.

Others ask questions such as where the woman comes from, her age, whether she has worked in another household before, and how old those children were.

“These are important questions, but if you cannot ascertain whether the answers are factual, then they become useless, because they could be lying,” she says.

Such women are often desperate to get someone to leave their children with, especially in a case where the house help they had just “woke up and left”.

But this desperation, she cautions, may turn out to be dangerous. “Some of these women are not really looking for a job — some work in cohorts with robbers, some are looking for children to steal, while others are unstable.”

The latter, she says, are the ones who end up mistreating your children, or even harming or killing them in a fit of anger.

“Before you settle on her, insist that she gives you her former employer’s number, one who hesitates to give it to you or gives excuses about why she does not have it could be hiding something,” she says.

It also does not hurt to ask her to provide you with a certificate of good conduct. A woman she knows takes every house help she employs to a police station near where she lives, and has her finger prints taken, and other vital details.

Other precautions to take include having her write down her relative’s — mother, father and siblings — phone numbers. Preferably, call to ascertain that the numbers are genuine, says Ms Waweru.
Pay attention

For those with small children, Ms Waweru insists that it is important for the child and the potential house help to first interact. “This means having the interview at your home, where you can watch how she acts with your child, or how you child responds to her.”

Counsellor Veronica Mbatia advises parents to pay attention to their children’s cues.

She advises the busy parent to deliberately set aside time for their children. “Activities like bathing your child will tell you whether he is being physical abused, or even sexually abused,” she points out.

House helps who turned on their employers

He returned home one Saturday at 2am, only to find his wife, Jane Wairimu, lying dead in a pool of blood, with multiple stab wounds on the neck and head.

In interviews following the March incident, Mr Moses Muchoki said that the househelp, who he only knew by one name, Beatrice, had worked for them for just three weeks.
The father of three says he did not know much about the suspect — only that she was was from western Kenya and had lived in Kiambui, in Nairobi’s Buru Buru estate.

A few weeks later, the suspect was arrested in Kinyona Village in Murang’a County, a short distance from where Ms Wairimu was being buried. In her possession was a cell phone belonging to Ms Wairimu.

According to court reports, “Beatrice”, is actually called Mary Khabetsa Matekwa. On April 30 she was arraigned in court, where she pleaded Not Guilty. Her case is set for hearing on November 26 and 27 this year. She is remanded at the Langata Women Prison.

But this is just one of the many worrying cases about househelps who turn on either their employer, or on the children left in their care; they either kill, maim, mistreat or abduct the children.

In 2012, a househelp was convicted for stealing a two year-old-boy and later killing him. When Elispher Muthoni heard on the radio that the police were searching for the boy she had stolen, she and an accomplice strangled him to death and threw him into a pit latrine.

Sexually transmitted disease
Muthoni is now serving a 30-year prison term.

In another shocking case earlier this year, a boy in Juja was infected with a sexually transmitted disease by the woman employed to look after him, a mother of five.

Recounting her story in the media last month, the boy’s mother, Njeri, said that the woman was a model worker, and not once did the two quarrel.

“I considered myself lucky to have found a ‘girl’ who was keen on following instructions and was extremely clean,” she said.

There was a catch however. Her son did not like the woman, yet he had been free with all previous househelps, but no alarm bells went off, not even when her son adamantly refused to be given a bath by the help.

A few months later, her son started complaining of pain when passing urine. There was also a foul smell coming from his genitals. Samples of his urine showed that he had an infection.

However, the medication given seemed ineffective, and Ms Kinyanjui decided to seek a second opinion. By then, her househelp had already left, after insisting that she needed to visit her children in Kisii, where she had told her employer she came from.

The second doctor informed her that the bacteria causing the symptoms were resistant. Apparently, her son had a rare sexually transmitted infection that combines different types of bacteria.

It is then that her son confessed that the househelp had been sexually molesting him. She would lock him up in the bathroom as she showered, and force him to stare at her naked body. She would then rape him. She is yet to be arrested.

What exactly would drive such normal-looking women to commit such heinous acts?

According to psychologist Loise Noo, such monstrous acts are often motivated by these women’s past experiences, negative and disappointing experiences that they carry within. Their acts, she says, are triggered more by internal issues, rather than by external ones.

“Most end up becoming house helps out of a failed ambition or a failed past. Some have dropped out of school due to lack of money, others are orphans – in short, the baggage they carry from the past failures could be attributed to their actions,” explains Dr Noo.

She advises employers to scratch beneath the surface and try to reach out to their domestic workers because this is the only way they will find out as much as they can about them. It is also important, she says, to treat them well.

“House helps who are mistreated by their employers are more likely to turn into child abusers,” she says.

Winnie Kitetu, another psychologist, points out that some could be suffering from a mental disorder.

“They could be suffering from a psychological condition where some people experience an exhilarating rush when they injure and cause others pain – such people are hardened, their actions do not bother them,” she says.

Ms Kitetu urges employers to go out of their way to treat them well, if they expect them to be dedicated, faithful, and to treat their children well. One of the ways of doing this is rewarding them occasionally.

“Her salary is often not enough, especially if she has children, so once in a while, give them something helpful that they did not expect, for example a few kilogrammes of unga when she is going to visit her children - it might not cost you much, but she will feel more motivated to give her best.”

Everyone, including house helps need to be accepted unconditionally, and treated like you would your child or relative.

“Talk to them with understanding and respect, and when they make a mistake, bear in mind that they are human, and that just like you, are prone to err.”

In many cases, she points out, your house help’s attitude mirrors how you treat her.

“Expect to get what you give - if you treat them with disrespect, it will be difficult for them to be good to you or to your child.”