A couple of months ago, a 30-year-old man was sentenced to time in jail for the murder of a child in a homestead where the former had been employed as a domestic worker.

At the moment, a video of a house maid torturing a baby of around two years has gone viral on the Internet. The footage, which originated from Uganda, has been viewed more than 20 million times.

Going by the comments, the world is outraged. From Facebook users in Uganda and coverage in international media, one can see that this is something that has shocked almost everyone. Everybody is asking: Who tortures a baby? How could this be?

Indeed, like the case of the man known as Hora who murdered the little Bella Uwase in Kigali and was tried in public in Nyamirambo stadium in April, this case from Uganda may not help to focus the attention on where the real problem lies.

Mistreatment of children by nannies and others employed as domestic servants could be a case of misdirected anger, if I may call it that. There is probably a mental health issue arising from somewhere else.

Of course nothing justifies torture or, for the Nyamirambo case, killing of a helpless child. However, it seems that the collective anger and attention such bizarre incidents generate is in the long run never transformed into a call for real action in dealing with the underlying problem.

Most people doing domestic work, for example in Kigali, are from very deprived backgrounds. A combination of factors lead them to work as domestics. Almost all of them lack basic education.

The majority of them are paid less than Rwf10,000. They are so lowly paid that some people can have three in a home doing all sorts of work.

And they are largely treated with disdain: “Umuboyi,” “Umuyaya” and “Kadogo” are labels that come across as derogatory, but they are used on people who prepare our meals and take care of people’s babies.

The mistreatment of domestic servants seems to be a global issue. Cases of migrant workers employed as domestic servants getting killed in the Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia have become so common these days.

However, the difference between what happens in the Middle East and us in this region is that the maltreatment is meted out to foreigners and the state has little obligation to them compared with what would be the case if they were nationals.

For a country like Rwanda, the existence of a large number of people doing or looking to be domestic servants implies a lack of opportunity for very many young people.

The meagre pay suggests that many are in it for the shelter and food that they get. And worse still, it is common to have children employed as domestics. That means they are also missing out on education and doing child labour.

Free basic education and probably benefits from technical and vocational training could alter the fortunes of poor and vulnerable people who end up in unskilled work that does nothing to change their life circumstances in the long run.

But beyond all this, people have suggested background checks, registration and all manner of measures aimed at screening out the undesirables from ever getting employed as domestic workers. That certainly is a good measure to take.

However, what happens when someone has already been employed is where the main problem could be. Again, the most refined, and hence desirable, will be looking for better work!

Acts of savagery

In any case, how you treat your domestic househelp in a home is most probably what makes the difference. Withholding salaries and all manner of abuse is what ultimately pushes some into acts of savagery that have been witnessed. For some, being domestic workers is enough frustration. And when you add maltreatment into the mix, you do not have to be surprised by what follows.

Apparently, the public trial that Hora was subjected to can, in a way, be said to be a further humiliation to that man who would have be presumed innocent at that point before getting convicted. Similarly, the public condemnation of the Ugandan nanny shows how no one is willing to accord her some dignity, however abhorrent what she did is.

This is not to absolve them of blame. No.

In July, there were complaints in Burundi when it was said that cases of male domestic workers defiling girls in homes they work in had reached alarming levels. But accompanying these allegations is always the mistreatment of the workers.

Therefore, for all those who are taking measures aimed at screening out the undesirables, it is also important that their problems, mental and physical state are also taken into consideration. Importantly, employing a househelp should mostly be when it is absolutely necessary.

Frank Kagabo is a Rwandan journalist based in London, the United Kingdom. E-mail: [email protected]; Twitter: @kagabo