My father is a retired policeman. We lived in police camps for 15 years. I did not outright hate the living situation but it had its challenges. The houses are small and generally need to be updated. Most of the houses were constructed over 30 years ago with no improvements made to them. For single income homes, life is hard. Policemen like most civil servants in Zimbabwe do not earn much. Most families have to find ways to supplement their income usually through growing and selling vegetables.
The last camp my family lived in was the New Highfields Camp in Harare. Most of the houses do not get running water inside their houses, the water does not have enough pressure to go into all the houses. There is a communal tap that we all used to use. There you would hear the latest gossip.
One day at the tap there were girls who I could tell from their clothes were working as maids.Their ages ranged from 14 to 17. Most of them were complaining about how much work they were having to do especially waking up early in the morning to fetch water. It broke my heart because these girls should have been in school at the time that they were discussing their employers. One of the girls started sharing with her friends how she was being beaten by her employer and not having enough food.
I noticed that her clothes were much nicer than those of her colleagues but she also had two scars one on her forehead and another on her arm. When she walked, she had a limb. I would say she was about fourteen at the time.
I became curious, so I asked why she had not left her employer if she was being treated so badly.
This is the story she told me: She was an orphan and had been adopted by a wealthy woman. A few weeks before I met her, the adoptive mother had died and her relatives did not want to look after her. She had been enrolled at the SOS School in Waterfalls, Harare but without a roof under her head, she decided to look for work as a maid. She had gone from house to house looking for work until she got to her current employer. The scars were as a result of operations she had when she was a child.
I knew I had to help her and that may have meant having to confront her employer. I offered to help her. She could leave her employer immediately and would stand by her if the employer insisted. After all, it is illegal to employee a child as well as abuse her. Also I was hopeful that her school would be able to help her, they also help orphaned children. She agreed so that day we took her into our house that night.
My parents were not home that night. A lot of things could have happened that night, but I just prayed that God would make everything right that night and it did.
The next day I took her to Machipisa Police Station and met with the Victim Friendly Unit Police Officer. The police officer had worked with my father before so I knew her, which made it easy. She was going to contact a few organisations that could take her in. I had to leave to her at the station as I had errands to run.
When I came back, she had gone. Apparently her sisters had been looking for her and they saw her talking to the police officer. The police station is next to a main road and if you sitting outside, people driving by can see you and that is what happened. Apparently most of what she had told me was not true.
She had had an argument with her mom and had run away from home. It had happened before. Unfortunately this had made her vulnerable to all kinds of attacks hence the scars.
I never saw her again or met her family.
In case you are wondering, I did not report her employer. My reasons may not sound valid. Reporting would have meant that the employer would have lost his job, and their children would have been left in the same situation as the one I was trying to help. There were also all the other girls in the same situation. I can not tell you why I did not try to help them too.
Most of these children end up working in terrible conditions because for them that is the best alternative. I have no idea how to solve the problem. You have so many of these girls who end up being sexually abused with no-one to turn to.
Every now and then I think about the girl I met at the tap and wonder if she is ok.