A 12-year-old housemaid has died in Rawalpindi after her employers severely beat her up some days ago. This happened after a child of the employers had accused the maid of stealing chocolate.
According to police, the wife of the employer identified as Rashid Qureshi hit the 12-year-old girl on the head with a rolling pin used to make roti. This fractured the girl’s skull and eventually led to her death The girl was also tied up during this time and not given any food to drink or eat. The employers also initially lied to the police when they said that the girl’s father was dead when in fact he was very much alive and was last reported to be on his way to Rawalpindi.
Police have registered a case against the employer Rashid Qureshi and his wife for murder, torture and evidence tampering A woman who was hired by the employers to teach the Holy Quran to the children discovered the abuse and alerted the police.
This horrific case is unfortunately one among many in a long line of instances of young girls working as maids tortured by their employers. In 2016, 10-year-old Tayyaba was severely beaten up and kept locked up at a judge's house in Islamabad. A picture of her badly battered, bruised and bloodied face went viral on social media (was initially tweeted by this writer and another journalist). The matter became too big to be ignored and that judge and his wife were arrested and tried. Both were sentenced to three years in jail and the judge was removed from his post and sacked. However, their prison sentence was reduced by the Supreme Court on appeal from three years to just one year.
What these children need to be doing is to be in school so that they can become educated and be able to earn a living once they are educated adults whose return will be far greater than working in homes where they are treated no better than slaves
Then in 2023, another case surfaced, this time also where a girl working as a maid was also badly beaten up -- and she too was working at the home of a civil judge who was working on deputation at the Federal Judicial Academy. Also, the same year came the horrible case of a 9-year-old girl working as a maid in the home of a landlord in Khairpur. He was also accused of raping her and was arrested and the matter is in court. And then in 2024, the body of a 17-year-old girl working as a maid in Karachi was found hanging from a fan - and police suspected that she was raped and murdered.
These are some of the terrible cases of rape and murder involving young girls working as maids in Pakistan. In most cases, the matter is investigated only once the media -- and in this case social media -- picks it up and highlights it. This puts pressure on the government and in particular the police to do something about it. However, as we saw in the case of Tayyaba, the culprits get away with just a slap on the wrist.
Such cases also reflect how we see those who work in our homes as domestic staff -- basically sub-humans, animals, to be played around with, and badly beaten if they don't follow orders. But it has to be said that not everyone would behave that way - as in you would have to be a deranged and heartless psychopath/sociopath to hurt a 12-year-old girl so badly that she ends up dying. A normal employer would perhaps scold a domestic helper if he or she is caught stealing or cut pay for the amount of the good stolen. But in most cases, such accusations of theft against domestic servants are not investigated by employers, and the cards are always stacked against domestic staff.
The unfortunate truth is that many employers don't treat their domestic staff with even the slightest bit of respect and dignity (at any given time social media is full of pictures of a young maid being made to sit separately at a restaurant by a family while taking care of the children but not being given anything to eat). Physical abuse is common, and it's common - given anecdotal evidence and cases - in well-off and educated households as well.
Societal attitudes need to change and the government should clamp down hard on anyone who hires a domestic helper who is a minor. At best, that is child labour and illegal. However, it's widely tolerated across Pakistan, under the pretext that these children need to earn to provide for their families. What these children need to be doing is to be in school so that they can become educated and be able to earn a living once they are educated adults whose return will be far greater than working in homes where they are treated no better than slaves.