January 27, 2005

I am sitting in a fashionable restaurant in a posh area. Not far from me there is an entire family with uncles and aunts, grandfathers and grandmothers, teenagers and toddlers and a nanny looking after probably the youngest in the family. A chair has been arranged by the restaurant owner and placed at such a strategic angle that the nanny, herself a child of roughly 14, is cut off from the group and isolated to just mind her own business.

Dinner is served and the entire family gets busy in devouring the dishes of their choice. No one offers a plate or a morsel to the girl. The only time she gets any attention is when the pretty young woman, who I believe was the mother of the child, turns to her to give her some instructions like, “Don’t wipe his nose with your hands, use the tissue in the side of the crib” or “If he is feeling restless take him out for some fresh air.” Apart from this there is no recognition of her presence. As far as this family is concerned she just does not exist.

Maybe the family fed this girl before they left the house but that is just giving them the benefit of the doubt. I see this happening all the time. Young girls, who if they had not been born on the wrong side of the pavement, could have been one of the dozens of teenagers frequenting hot spots.

This is sophisticated slavery where the chains are pretty well hidden. It is not a matter of months or years but is spread over many generations. It is not uncommon for little girls from poor families to grow into women serving the same family, and when the child they were looking after gets married they are almost part of the dowry and the mother of the bride proudly proclaims that my girl just cannot live without her nanny who has brought her up and looked after her every step of the way.

Chances are that when the nanny gets married to the driver their first daughter will start serving the master’s children and so on. And you thought Abraham Lincoln had gotten rid of this long ago?

I have always wondered what goes on in the minds of these teenage children as they serve opulent houses and see children of their own age having every wish granted before it is spoken, going to fashionable schools, chatting on the internet, bowling and generally having fun. What is so cruel is that we have assumed that the child servants have no heart, desire or dreams.

When our child cries we hold him or her to our hearts and do everything in our power to make them smile. Do we ever look at the silent tears of these young girls living in rich surroundings? They are condemned to abject poverty and look for handouts from children of their own age. The mornings must be the toughest for them. The children depart for their schools in their clean and neat uniforms and snacks while these servants turn to the back breaking chores of the house.

You may not believe me or share my sadness at this state of affairs. We have the unique skill of glorifying every wrong we commit and turn it into some kind of a blessing for society. With scorn someone will say, “If we do not keep these servants their families will die of hunger” or worse still, “Who told them to breed like rabbits. Now we have to look after them.”

The plain truth came out in a conversation with a family that had just moved back from the US. They said, “I think the best thing about Pakistan is the abundance of servants and they are not very fussy. In America the cook or nanny can eat anything from your kitchen and also charge overtime.” I can see the next advertisement in the New York Times, “Come to Pakistan. We offer servants without hearts and desires. The next best thing to Japanese robots.” This will certainly send the begum sahibas scurrying back home.

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