The miserable death of a 23-year-old domestic worker, Marie Rachel Kleinveld, in a Cape Town hospital last week has thrown a harsh spotlight on the labour practices of unregistered job agencies which lure poor rural women to the city on promises of work.
Kleinveld, who fell ill, was locked away by the agency that recruited her and hospitalised too late to save her life.
The Department of Labour said she was typical of the more than 300 women who arrive in Cape Town from the Karoo every week with only their labour for sale.
Most are recruited by unregistered agencies who ignore statutory work conditions.
”The situation is out of control,” said David Esau, the labour department’s manager of inspection and enforcement. ”There is no way to police illegal agencies and control under what pretext women are lured to the cities.
”Unless women come to us and lay charges, we can do nothing. We don’t have the manpower to do the policing.”
The Scorpions launched an investigation of unregistered agencies late last year. It has apparently been dropped until Parliament enacts legislation barring human trafficking.
Kleinveld was brought to Cape Town in May by the unregistered Mitchells Plain Domestic Services, which recruits young women in the Karoo town of Middelburg. Her madam, Samira Adams, paid the agency R450.
Kleinveld worked for three weeks before falling ill. Told that she should be hospitalised, Adams took her back to the agency’s owner, Tinus Botha, and said she needed a new maid.
She told the Mail & Guardian that she had explained the need for hospital treatment to Botha. ”I paid her R240 to go back home,” Adams said. ”Botha’s wife shouted at her for falling sick on the job.”
After paying a R300 fee, Adams left the agency with another domestic worker. But Kleinveld was allegedly locked up on the agency’s premises, where she was found by another recruit. ”She was in a terrible state,” said the woman, who did not want to be identified, said. ”She couldn’t walk and crawled to open the door when I knocked. There were three slices of bread with jam next to her bed.”
Kleinveld was rushed to hospital, but died of tuberculosis and Aids-related complications.
”She had a treatable illness. If they had presented her earlier, there would have been a different outcome,” said Giovanni Perez, medical superintendent at GF Jooste Hospital, where she died.
Botha insisted he ”tried his best for these people”. ”When she arrived I could see she was sick, but not that sick,” he told the M&G this week. ”I was going to take her back home.”
The Mitchells Plain police station said no docket had been opened on the death of Kleinveld, the mother of two.
”We have to wait for the hospital to notify us of the death; then we can start investigating,” said Inspector Rowyne Muller.
Labour department investigators confiscated Botha’s files and searched his premises this week. However, investigators said they could not close the agency because only the director general of labour had the authority to do so.
Botha, who travels weekly in his bakkie to recruit women from rural towns all over the Karoo, the Boland and the Eastern Cape, justified his agency this week. ”There’s no work in small towns,” he said. ”I’m helping these women to earn a living so that they can support their families.”
The women are kept at the agency until Botha can set them up with employees for between R350 and R450 a head. Most are then paid between R300 and R800 a month by their madams, working up to 15 hours a day, six or seven days a week. Many work for free for the first two months so that their employers can recoup the agency fees.
Private employment agencies are regulated by the Skills Development Act, which states that domestic workers in urban areas must be paid R930,15 a month if they work more than 27 hours a week.