A househelp’s tale of the sufferings she’s had to endure from her bosses has generated sympathy and outrage from social media users.
The 20-year-old lady who began working as a house help when she was still a teenager said she’s been sexually assaulted by her male bosses. The wife of one of the men made her feel it was her fault and maltreated her as a result. She escaped when the man tried to rape her.
Sadly, her experience as a househelp in Lagos didn’t get any better. One of her employers who was a pastor also tried to rape her.
Sharing her story with Humans of New York, she said:
“I want to live a happy life. I’m tired of living a poor life. I’m trying to save money for school but nothing is working. I’ve left home three different times looking for work. The first time I found a job as a housekeeper. But every morning when I got dressed the man would try to touch me. I was only seventeen. He wouldn’t even stop when I threatened to tell on him. His wife blamed me for his attention. She beat me severely. There were bruises all over my body. She didn’t even allow me to eat. But I tried to stay because I wanted to go to school so badly. Then one morning he tried to rape me in the bath, and I finally ran away. When I found a new housekeeping job, the same thing happened. This time it was a pastor. So a few weeks ago I switched to a cleaning job at an art gallery. But they just fired me for speaking to the visitors. I don’t know why this always happens to me. It makes me so angry. I get mad at my parents for being poor. I get mad at my friends for going to school. When I see their graduation pictures on Facebook, I just start crying. I’m already twenty years old. I should be finishing school, but I haven’t even started yet. But everything has it’s own time. Hopefully my time will come too.”
(Lagos, Nigeria)
