Domestic servitude is a form of forced labor that is seemingly normal practice of live-in help that is used as cover for the exploitation and control of someone, or it can also be seen as a special category of labor trafficking: the plight of domestic workers such as maids, servants, housekeepers, child-care givers, those caring for the elderly, the ill, and the infirm.
Every year citizens and foreign nationals living in many countries bring thousands of domestic workers into the country. Many of them suffer abuse, ending up essentially held in bondage. Frequently these are young women who have been promised an education but rarely get what they bargained for. Visas normally require that domestic service workers remain with their original employer or face deportation, this tends to discourage workers from reporting abuse.
Additionally, monitoring is impossible as the work takes place hidden in private homes, violence and sexual abuse are common.
Causes
Poverty: In our society today, many people especially from the rural areas find it very difficult to afford a three-daily square meal due to the economic situation of the country, they lack basic social amenities like education, security of life and property, they live in homes worthy of been called trash dumps. As a parent living in such misery, the only goal is to get a better life for their family as a they result get out there to earn a living for their families by working as what I would call part time or full-time slaves, sometimes, the children of such parent s also get involved in this work with their parents, get maltreated, insulted and treated sometimes like animals by these rich folks in the pretense to give them the basic needs their parents cannot, which is denied them along the line.
Illiteracy: Due to high level of illiteracy in the society today, people are easily exploited and taken away with fake promises.
Solutions
Provision of employment and good education in rural areas by the government.
Another level of response is that of government action. Crafting, passing, and funding responsive legal remedies.
Fixing of immigration policy.
Public education matters a lot also.
I read a story about a fifteen-year-old girl who was forced into selling sex and drug.
Her story: My mum used to have a tortilla shop, but when she got arthritis I quit school and became a cook at a small restaurant in San Pedro Sula to support my family. I was 15.
I worked 12-hour shifts and finished every day at 6pm, the same time that the gang curfew in our city came into effect. There are two main gangs in the area, and anyone on the streets after the curfew becomes a target. Every day I thought might be my last. One evening, my co-worker and I were walking to the bus stop when three gang members stopped and said we’d have to sell sex and drugs for them. “We’re not asking you,” they said. “We’re giving you an order.” They let us go, but I was terrified. The next night after work, they were there, waiting for us. “Time’s up,” they said, and they forced us into a car at gunpoint.
We drove to a poor neighborhood and stopped at a wooden house with a tin roof. There was a room that had a hole in the floor, and they pushed us into it and locked us in. When they finally opened the door again, a policeman was standing over us. We thought we were saved. Then he turned to the gang members and said: “It’s good you finally got some new girls. Let me try them first.” He was the first person to rape us. Then the gang members raped us.
In the morning, men paid to have sex with us; and every night the gang would tie us up, cover our eyes and separate us. Then we’d be driven to different street corners to sell cocaine, and one of the guys would stand behind us with a gun, collecting the cash. They gave us no food, no water. They said we didn’t deserve it, that we had no rights. When I begged for a sip of water, one of them told me to drink my own urine.
Eventually, a client helped me escape. I told him I was very weak and was being held there against my will. He came back the following evening, put me in a taxi to the bus station, and paid for my ticket to the Mexican border.
