Image courtesy: Ayesha Mysorewala

In the swanky Dolmen Mall, facing the popular café Expresso, surrounded by chatter and food, she stood barefoot in her shabby clothes in the corner assigned to her. No chair was offered to her as the minutes ticked by. No wonder, because the chairs were occupied by the elitist, self-righteous bottoms and designer bags of her employers. She stood for over an hour but the eight-year-old girl did not dare lean against the pillar because she knew it would invite the wrath of her owners. Just imagining the cool marble of the pillar being sullied by the dirty clothes of the “maid” was enough to send shivers down their delicate spines.   

 While these women were pigging out on Expresso’s delicious fare, a lady stepped up and interrupted their rendezvous. She told them they were inhuman to mistreat their child slave. Since hell hath no fury than the entitled, the four women gave her a piece of their diseased mind which eventually drove her away, undoubtedly with a migraine.

Another customer then asked for permission to give the kid a cookie, but got yelled at their audacity for not minding their own business and trying to give ‘their bachi’ a cookie.  

At the same café, a 12-year-old girl was seen standing next to the booth carrying the goodie-laden bags of her employer. A customer requested the waiter to give her a chair after which she sat down but naturally giving her any kind of food was prohibited.

At KFC in Islamabad, while devouring crispy chicken and fries, I noticed a small girl who came and stood against a wall diagonally opposite to me. She gazed at the floor until drawn by my gaze, she locked eyes. Her eyes contained equal measures of embarrassment, shame and humiliation because she was one of the many child slaves deputed to look after kids half their size, the children of the rich rich. She stood in a corner while the family ate their fill. I looked back at my fries laden plate and lost my appetite, feeling ashamed of eating while that kid stood in purgatory. I gestured towards her, asking her to come over and eat but she ducked her head, afraid; if she didn’t follow the instructions, there would be hell to pay later. Now she stood as still as a statue at Madame Tussauds. The other diners continued tucking in, chatting and staring curiously at the girl.

I looked around the restaurant, assessing the diners, trying to pick out the people who had brought this girl along to mind their kid, only to abandon her when it was time to feast. My feverish meanderings were interrupted when a posh couple swept by with a baby in tow and crooked a little finger at that little girl to accompany them. Like a puppy, she followed their lead, head down and eyes downcast. Needless to say, I was tempted to stick my leg out to trip the smug couple down the stairs but their sleeping baby boy tucked away in the crook of the father’s arm made me pause. Ironical how much love was showered on the little prince as compared to Cinderella.  

 Education has stopped opening minds in Pakistan as evidenced at the upmarket Xander’s where a yuppie couple sat at a table with their toddler and maid. While the adults gobbled down the mouthwatering food, played with their phones and implored the kid to eat, the maid sat alone amidst them, looking away from the food. The restaurant staff seem to take their cue from such customers who have fat wallets and empty hearts. Far from offering the poor kids a complimentary meal, they don’t even give them a chair.

As someone pointed out, what is intriguing is the contrast between the way Filipino maids are treated as opposed to these grubby Dickensian urchins. Since Filipino maids are a status symbol, they can sit at the same table and order whatever they please.

In the age of social media and instant communication, instead of posting pictures of the maid, one should take pictures of the employers because they need to be named and shamed especially since this breed love to pose like what they are not. Six degrees of separation, anyone?  

Talking of hypocrites, a self-avowed feminist on Twitter recently poured out her apprehensions because her daughters “have arranged a new maid in Multan, a young girl who wears spectacles, which stops me from handling her like ordinary maids.”

Far from understanding the depths of her despair for having to tame her fists, when she was taken to task, she revealed her feminist ideals by roundly abusing in language which could redden anyone’s ears. Unfortunately such people are part of our society: uupar say feminist, andar say jahil (a feminist on the surface and asinine underneath).

Let’s fight for human rights and Naya Pakistan where everyone is equal… except the maids at home, of course. Why do they need change? So what if they get slapped around; we do pay them, right? So ungrateful, this lot, I tell you.  

Cases where child slaves are brutally beaten or sexually assaulted rarely bob to the surface like corks in murky water before being pulled under by the quicksand of connections and wealth. Children are beaten with sticks, burnt with irons, smacked with kitchen tongs, raped by rapacious thugs, thrown off roofs because they are children of a lesser God; their crime is having been born in poverty stricken homes and sent out to earn to keep the kitchen fire burning at home. Cut off from family and friends in an urban unforgiving landscape, these kids are starved, made to work through the day and locked inside the house so there is no possibility of escape to attain freedom.

More often than not, the parents are called from the village to receive their emaciated, battered bodies.

What happened to my child, they ask tearfully?

Oh he/she was too naughty, fell off the balcony, what to do! We looked after him/her like our own, but what can we do in front of Allah’s will?

Never mind the healing scars and reddening scabs, the bald patches on the head or the marks of torture all over that tiny frame. The sobbing parents know there will be no justice for their unrecognizable child; the pain will be an open festering wound for the rest of their sorry lives.

How many among us know about such kids in their families and friends’ houses? Do we take a stand against this kind of exploitation?

Money may make the world go round but it also makes it blind and deaf.