« The TV and the computer aren’t for people from your background »

(April 2010)

Article published in "World of Work", the ILO magazine, of April 2010 (page 17), available on http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcomm/documents/publication/wcms_126576.pdf  

Now, domestic work is just a bad memory for Sara, a Moroccan girl who was able to return to school thanks to action by a teachers’ trade union.

Life changed dramatically in January 2003 for Sara Marbouh, a 10-year-old girl living in Fès (Morocco). Her father had to give up work as a result of losing his eyesight and her mother decided that Sara should leave school to help the family earn a living. “I was in the fourth year of primary school, I wanted to carry on because I liked studying. If we hadn’t had these financial problems, my mother would have let me continue at school, even though she wasn’t entirely convinced it was useful, especially because one of my brothers hadn’t been able to find a job in the field for which he was qualified. A neighbour knew a woman in Casablanca who was looking for a domestic worker and offering a wage of 500 dirhams (US$58) per month. I kept pestering my mother to change her mind. After we’d had an argument I thought I’d convinced her but one Sunday in January 2003, about 10 o’clock in the morning, the woman arrived in her car and in the afternoon she took me back home with her.”

Sara started work the very next day. “There was no end to it: washing the clothes, washing the dishes, cleaning the house, etc. They woke up at 6 a.m. but I had to get up before them to prepare their breakfast and then I was working all day and in the evening too, sometimes until midnight. They all had their own rooms but I slept in the kitchen. My employer often hit me. She did so the first time I did the washing because she wasn’t happy with what I’d done. One day, when I was alone in the house, I went on the family computer but when my boss arrived, she was really angry. She hit me and she told me to stay away from the computer and TV in future because they weren’t for people from my background. The same thing happened when I picked up the children’s toys. She told me there were cameras hidden in the house to keep an eye on me.”

Thanks to a programme launched by the National Education Union (SNE), Sara was able to go back to school. Among other things, the programme aims to raise the awareness of teachers regarding their role in the community in cases of absenteeism or dropping out of school altogether. “When we noticed Sara’s absence and found out what had happened to her, we held a meeting to discuss her case. Then we went to see her mother to try and make her realize the importance of education,” explained the head of Sara’s school, Mohammed Glioui, who is also a union activist. “We offered her help with getting Sara back to school: some classroom items, some clothes, things like that. She was proud that we were doing that for her daughter. After mulling over the situation for two months, she called the woman Sara was working for and arranged for her daughter to come back to school.”

Sara is 16 now and doing extremely well at school. She is in her first year of secondary school and hopes to continue her studies and become a paediatrician.

                                                                                      Samuel Grumiau