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Tenacity Of A Maid

Tenacity Of The Maid are anthologies that I wrote while working as a domestic worker. I must say I learned to respect domestic workers than I ever did before. I met domestic workers in Jo’burg, Venda and Polokwane and saw one thing in common, these mothers are hard working and determined to fight poverty. They endure being underpaid, overworked, long hours of work, humiliation, belittling by their madams, their bosses’ husbands, and children. These women have to take care of their own families after a long day of hard work. Most madam’s do not register domestic workers for Unemployment Insurance Fund with the Department of Labor to avoid paying Unemployment Insurance Fund contributions and to pay minimum wage. This is also to their advantage when they want to fire the unregistered domestic worker. The tactics madam use are: "Sesi, I will call you to come and work". "Sesi, thank you very much you don't have to come back tomorrow. Here is your wages". Because of illeteracy challenge in South Africa domestic workers use verbal agreements. Domestic workers are some of the determined laborers one finds. I don’t say that all domestic workers are good, there are thieves and bad ones as well and I met them. I remember one domestic worker boasting of how this one madam’s marriage was broken by a domestic worker. I told her I did not support such acts. In these poems I express the tenacity of domestic workers. The heart-ache they suffer and usually do not report their exploiting madams to the Department of Labor.Read more

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