Marianne Merten
Victoria Pieters* boarded a taxi with 15 women in January to start work as a domestic worker with a Cape Town agency after the death of her one-year-old baby girl.
She left behind her mother and younger sister in a shack at De Aar in the Karoo. There was little money: her mother earned R150 a month cleaning homes three times a week.
When Pieters (22) arrived at Superior Domestics in Rylands, an upmarket suburb on the Cape Flats, she was told she owed the agency R220 for the taxi fare and that her employer would deduct this from her wages. She had to sign a contract, including a R120 penalty clause, to work through the agency for six months.
Two months later she ran away without having received a cent.
“We didn’t know. We had to come here first to find out about the regulations,” Pieters said. “I didn’t get anything. I most probably still owe money.”
Pieters worked for three weeks for her first employer. When she returned after a weekend off, another domestic worker was in her place. She went back to the agency, which subsequently provided her only one day’s char work.
She and other women slept on mattresses and four beds in the garage at the agency. The gate to the street was always locked and two dogs guarded the back yard.
During her stay there she had to work in the main house to pay for her upkeep. The women had mielie pap for breakfast, bread and coffee for lunch and rice for dinner.
On March 10 she and Marie Hendricks* told the agency boss they were going to the shop. Instead they went to the police and spent two nights at different police stations before they could fetch their belongings with police protection.
Sitting in a wooden shack in a commercial storage yard in the Cape Flats, Pieters is waiting for word from acquaintances about available jobs. She relies on a “boyfriend” for shelter and food.
“I want to work, but not through an agency. I don’t have money to go back home,” she sighed.
There is little protection from the authorities for hundreds of women like Pieters who leave rural areas in hope of a better life.
The Basic Conditions of Employment Act does not apply because there is not an employer-employee relationship between the woman and the agency. Department of Labour officials say they can do little under the existing labour relations laws.
Private employment agencies are regulated by the Skills Development Act. All that is required is a certificate which is valid for two years. Regulations pertain mostly to record-keeping and office space.
South African Domestic Services and Allied Workers’ Union secretary general Myrtle Witbooi said it seems impossible to close down these agencies, despite several meetings with the labour department. “We help the worker and we send her back to poverty,” said a frustrated Witbooi.
The Department of Social Development is prepared to step in only if a minor is involved and police say they cannot act unless the women lay criminal charges.
This week Superior Domestics co-owner Nisaar Mia appeared in court for assault after allegedly slapping Hendricks. Approached for comment, Mia said he had returned at 5am from Upington and was “not in the mood to talk”.
However, when asked whether women slept in the garage while waiting for placements, he said: “This is definitely not happening here” and insisted he and his wife were doing their best to help the women. But he admitted he sometimes shouted at the women “to get them functioning”.
Mia claimed he lost money because women he had placed ran away from work to end up sleeping rough, “pushing a trolley with cardboard” and going “from man to man, from shanty to shanty”. This year at least 22 women had absconded.
On this week’s trip he had looked “for girls from the age of 25 to 45 girls who have experience in life. I don’t look for girls who want to gallivant in the Cape.”
Mia said his “girls” were paid at least R450 a month for sleep-in positions. But earlier he told a new arrival “you owe R290 for the taxi and your wages will be R230”.
The agency was founded in 1999. Mia said it had placed 502 women during the first year and 1 200 last year. The agency receives a R120 fee from employers, who arrive between 8am and 8pm at the house six days a week to fetch their domestic worker.
“This business has a stigma attached. It is not an easy business. They [the women] are all so different,” Mia said. “I’m making a heavy consideration to move out. You are dealing with human beings all the time.”
Every week women arrive at the Athlone police station seeking help. On Sunday another woman spent the night there waiting for her brother from Upington to fetch her.
“To me it’s a form of slavery. The women are lured away,” said police Captain Dion Jaftha.
He said women had been sexually assaulted, accused of theft or bound into service by employers who deducted the cost of toiletries and food, leaving no income. Many ended up in squatter camps or on the streets.
Athlone police social crime prevention officer Celeste Benting denied Mia’s claim that police bear a grudge. “A lot of the women are too scared to talk about it … because they are so traumatised,” she said. “It’s not that we have a personal vendetta against him. The women should not end up on the police stoep.”
* Not their real names