Law on documentation, protection of domestic workers,

A law that will address the issue of employment, regulation and management of domestic staff for the security of Nigerian homes is underway in the Senate.

This followed the passage for second reading a “Bill for an Act to provide for the documentation and protection of domestic workers and employees” by  the Senate at plenary on Wednesday.

The bill, which was sponsored by Senator Hussaini, Babangida Uba (Jigawa North West), intends to address the issue of employment, regulation and management of domestic staff on one hand and deal with the matter of the rights of the employers on the other hand.

Senator Hussaini, while briefing journalists in the National Assembly said “it is a two way bill that seeks to address the regulation and the operation of the informal sector of the economy” and curb domestic  violence between domestic staff and their employers.

He went down memory lane to say in 1998, there was a senior flight officer of the Nigeria Airways, Hadiza Obo; she was almost becoming a Captain at the age of 39, highly cerebral. She  was murdered by her domestic employees. It was highly reported, but up till today, the culprits have not been found because  records had it that they were workers from Togo or Benin Republic that she employed and they connived to kill her.

“There are lots of unreported cases of attrocities committed by our domestic workers.

“Secondly, on the part of employers, there are reported and unreported cases of employers maltreating, sexually harassing and even some times killing domestic workers in their employ.

“Therefore, the intendment of the bill is to bring the two sides of the coin together so that we can have a harmonized, regulated, documented and properly articulated approach to domestic employee-employer relationship”.

He said most of the people we employ, we hardly even ever know them. “The security guard you see and you say bring guard for me, driver, cook, etc you don’t know his history, psychology, background, you don’t have any record of him. In case of any  problem, you find out that you can trace him.

“Cases of kidnappings, burglary and house thefts are usually as a result of internal collision of your domestic staff and outsiders.

Senator Hussaini said the intendment of the bill is to set up an agency, a department, a directorate, or preferably a commission. 

He said, “if you look at the Philippines, more than 40% of their GDP is strictly coming from those informal sectors by supplying the larger number of nurses and house helps to Europe and other countries because it is properly regulated”.

In his remarks, the Senate President, Godswill Akpabio commended the sponsor of the bill and those that spoke in the importance of the bill and referred it the committee on Labour and Productivity to report back to the Senate in four weeks.

By Haruna Salami