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Maids in Swaziland

25/08/2013 04:57:00 BY MFANUKHONA NKAMBULE

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Portia Dlamini (33) who runs the Maid Recruitment Agency showing the files with pictures of her clients.

MANZINI – “My business is vulnerable to human trafficking; so I am very careful of people who pose as employers in need of live-in-maids,” said Portia Dlamini (33) who runs a Maid Recruitment Agency.

As a result, she says she does not help people calling from outside the country seeking services of maids because she may not be privy to their personal profiles.
She has been advised by the Labour Department in the Ministry of Labour and Social Security to keep records of the people who seek her company’s services.

Her company is called Xtreme Business Solutions, Training and Recruitment.
“I cannot keep records of foreigners. One person from the USA recently called to enquire about the company’s services and I turned him down,” she said.
So far, she has helped over 1 000 women to find employment in different homes around the country. She wants all her maids to be paid the gazetted minimum salary of E670 per month or above. For her services, the employer pays a once-off fee of E270 while the maid pays E50 registration fee (once off).

Her business has been able to generate E270 000 when you multiply E270 by 1 000 maids who are her clients.
Portia produces evidence of what she talks about. She sits in an office packed with files with information on the maids she had dispatched to various workstations and profiles of the employers. The maid and her employer are subject to screening.
They are made to fill in forms that demand that they disclose their personal background, place of employment, contact details and other personal particulars.

The maids are required to get a police clearance and are sternly warned against professional misconduct before they are dispatched to their various workstations. Before they are posted to their workstations, the maids produce a copy of their identity document and passport size photo which is affixed to their personal files.
The personal files are kept by Portia.

Due to a confidentiality clause she has signed with her clients, Portia does not want to reveal high profile people who seek her company’s services but this newspaper saw three names of prominent people who hired maids through her. The former St Theresa High School pupil told the Times SUNDAY that the high unemployment rate in the country has led many job seekers, especially at the Matsapha Industrial Site, to come to her for help.
Now, there are 30 people who need live-in-maids by the end of August.
One maid will leave for an E1 300 paying job in South Africa after being hired by a Swazi national employed by the Southern African Development Community (SADC).

The 33-year old woman of Wo-odmasters in Manzini says her recruitment agency started as a hobby in 2007 until she opened a fully fledged office in Manzini in 2010.
The business gained momentum when many people responded to advertisements she had placed in the Times of Swaziland.

Man marries maid

MANZINI – Running a Maid Recruitment Agency is not an easy task as some immoral men tend to hire maids for sexual abuse, Portia Dlamini says.

She says though she has not handled cases of rape, she had to attend to several cases of men who made advances to the maids.
She stays in constant contact with the maids and their employers. “I normally tell them that they should inform me immediately they encounter any serious problems that particularly relates to sexual harassment. This will help me engage the employers in talks over the conditions of service the maids live under. However, I can point out that we reserve the right to report sexual abuse to the police and organisations that deal with women affairs,” she explains.

Portia says she sometimes advises the maids to resign forthwith if the male employer continues to make sexual advances at them. She recalls one specific case which she says was very unique and complicated to handle as a male employer ended up marrying a maid through Swazi Law and Custom. The saddest part is that, she says, the wife of the male employer was on study leave abroad. On her return, she says, the husband chucked her out of their matrimonial home.

“That was the saddest experience I ever went through in my career as a business consultant,” she says. She usually warns them against falling in love with their employers. She says she is also in regular contact with the wives of the male employers to check if the maids are behaving and respecting their (wives) marriage. On another note, she reveals that some of the maids had a tendency to seduce their male employers. She advises them to always treat men as their bosses, not potential husbands or boyfriends. Dlamini says single men are also free to seek his services on condition they will not abuse the women.

“There are men who are very honest. I know a case of a single man who treated the maid as one of his daughters. He was so devastated when the maid passed away that he catered for all funeral expenses. Honest men like this one are needed in our society,” she says.
Superintendent Wendy Hleta, Police Public Relations Officer (PRO), said it was difficult for her to comment on this type of business unless there was a case in which a foreigner would want a maid shipped to his native country.
“I haven’t yet heard of a case in which the recruiters shipped maids to foreign countries. Therefore, it may be difficult for me to comment on the matter,” he said.

Thabiso Dlamini, the Communications Officer at the Labour Commissioner, said domestic servants were now protected by law and anyone hiring a maid should pay her salary in accordance with the gazette.
The gazetted minimum salary for a maid is E670.