Senator Hussaini Babangida Uba is currently representing Jigawa North West Senatorial District of Jigawa state in Nigeria’s 10th Senate. Here he addresses Senate Press Corps (SPC) on his reason for presenting a Bill titled: A Bill for an Act to Provide for the Documentation and Protection of Domestic Workers and Employees and for Other Matters Connected therewith, 2022. He is of the firm belief that it will protect the employees and employe. Chief Correspondent, ABBANOBI – EKU ONYEKACHI was there.
Excerpts.
Qtn: Can you briefly explain the importance of this your Bill that has passed second reading?
Ans: The intension of the bill is to address employment regulation and management of domestic workers in one hand, and in the other hand, to deal with the matters of the rights of also the employers from the domestic workers. It is a two way Bill that tends to address the regulations and the operations of the informal sector of the economy.
Let me go back to history; in 1998, it was widely reported that there was a Nigerian flight officer of the Nigerian Airways who was about to become a captain at the age of 39; she was killed by her domestic workers. The culprits had not been found, because record has it that they came from either Togo or Benin Republic. They connived and murdered her. So there are a lot of atrocities committed by domestic employees.
Secondly at the part of the employers as well, there is also a lot of reports of maltreatment of domestic workers by their employers, harassing them, sexually and otherwise, even killing them. So the intension of the bill is to bring the two side of the coins together, so that we can have harmonised, regulated, documented and properly articulated approach to the domestic employer – employee relationship.
Having spoken and presented the lead debate at the plenary, it is also known that we hardly know most of our employees. The guard in your gate, you don’t know his history, psychology, background and anything about him. In case of any problem, you will not be able to trace or locate him, likewise other domestic workers. Cases of kidnappings, burglary and house breaking and theft, among similar others, are usually, as a result of internal collusion between your domestic workers and maybe outsiders.
Qtn: What exactly is the intendment of this Bill?
Ans: The intendment of this Bill is to set up an agency or directorate, but for me, my intension is to have a commission. Now, if you look at the Philippines, about 40% of their GDP strictly comes from the informal sector. If you go to Europe and other places, you find out the larger number of nurses and house helps are from the Philippines, because it is strictly regulated. You have registered employment agencies that could recruit, train and document prospective employees.
So as a prospective employer, you approach the employment agency, you give them your specification, they now recommend for you an employee. With that, you have a seamless relationship and at the same time, the government will be making money from this, because a stipend will be paid to the government by the employment agencies, for proper monitoring and evaluation. This is the background and the reason behind the Bill.
I am sure, in one way or the other, we have domestic workers, house helps, cooks and drivers, among others; they are parts of our families. I bet you that if I ask you the background of your domestic worker, the answer will be no. This girl is from Nasarawa or elsewhere and you go ahead and employ her without knowing her background. So the whole idea is to have sanity and to organise that informal sector, so that we can have seamless employer – employee worker relationship; so that the right of every partner will be protected; the right of the domestic worker to sanitary and clean living condition, both living wage and at the same time, medical care and all other benefits that accrue should be available to him. And at the same time, as an employer of labour, you can say this is the person I know and that there is a guarantor, who has recommended him and there is an employment agency that actually recruited and handed him over to me. So that is the intendment generally of the Bill.
Qtn: In carrying out your research, do you have the total number of domestic workers in this country, and do you mean that if one employs a domestic worker, he should register him with the commission, or go to the commission for a domestic worker?
Ans: Interestingly enough, the report I just made reference to, I got it from ThisDay Newspaper in 1998. So that is a part of my resource material. To be candid, I will not be able to give you the estimated number of domestic workers in the country. What I can say, is that the structure of Nigeria economy itself, is that about 74% is in the informal sector. So you can actually give an intelligent approximation of the number.
Speaking for myself, I have: a driver, a cook, a couple of domestic staff that are under me; even family members that are living with me, are parts of my domestic staff. You can aggregate the number and have a fair understanding of the total national aggregate. Therefore, the question of taking this matter for granted shouldn’t even arise. It is for security reasons as I pointed out.
What I have in mind is that we have employment agencies and they are already existing, informally. But let me tell you, if you want a domestic staff here in Abuja, there are women that are all over the place. They tell you that they can get you a house boy or house girl for you. The idea is instead of living this arrangement loosely as it is, unregulated; we want to create an employment agency and you can go and register; you out advert and recruit, train and select from the pool of staff you have. Anybody can come to your company to request for driver or house help, with so so qualification. That you want somebody that is literate. With that, you will be able to get your standard, which the employment agency would recommend for you.
So all we need is a body or a commission to regulate and coordinate the operations; you now go and register with them, so that they can be the custodian of the total national date base.
Qtn: Don’t you think that should this Bill come to pass, it not only result into over centralizing the whole thing, but also expensive to maintain, as the country is already over burdened?
Ans: No amount of money paid to secure our homes and families is too much. Don’t forget that I just left the civil service and I am not bringing about a bogus structure. The intendment is a self – financing agency that will be making money for the government. Secondly, it is about standard monitoring and evaluation; actually the implementation, the recruitment and management of the employees is strictly in the hands of the employment agencies that are to come up. This is even going to create job, because once you have these employment agencies, they are going to recruit staff; they are going to set up offices, they are going to have their overhead and at the same time, they will be paying their staff.
Qtn: Can you briefly tell us if this is practiced elsewhere and it’s advantage to the economy?
Ans: It is a common practice globally. You can’t go to the street in the UK to say you want a driver to be employed; you can’t get them. You have to go through an employment agency and through the relationship, they make commission. They pay remittances and tax to the government, and at the same time, they created job opportunities for their own staff. That is the idea of the Bill. It is not about establishing an agency with cumbersome and extra financial burdens to the government.
Qtn: You know that Nigerians know how to package themselves, even some wouldn’t like to be known or seen as a domestic worker and some employers would refer to their domestic workers as their sisters, brothers. How are they going to be documented?
Ans: It is a matter of enlightenment. Dew months back, it was reported in one of the dailies, either in Enugu or Anambra, where a lawyer was declared wanted by the NAPTIP. She abused her domestic worker and it was reported in newspapers. It will interest you to know that the wish and the opportunity for this kind of relationship is very important and it is common everywhere. Go to any home and say you want to register a guard.
It is always in the news how domestic staff have been abusing the little children under their care. So the facts remains that there is hunger for this kind of regulations and controls in our society. It is all about enlightenment. No one will be against him and his family being secured; mainly because, if you look at the kind of life we are live today, our women are almost, practically, living outside our homes. They go back home by either 6pm or 7pm and when they get home they are tired and exhausted. They rely mostly on the domestic workers. So tell me any house owner who wil reject a a set up that will secure his home and his family, there will be none. So it is about self enlightenment. Once we agree that we want to sanitize the sector, for the good of all, the result will be positive.
