WOMEN’S VOICES
Testimonies

“You can eat this ... it’s clean“

In order to talk about discrimination and racism in Brazil, I am going to start by referring to the colonization of the Americas, and consequently, to the enslavement of the African peoples. A system of domination that denied the humanity of the peoples it subjected, treating them as mere objects.

Brazil received more enslaved Africans -almost 4,500,000 people- than any other country, and Brazilian society was built on and developed thanks to the work of those slaves. That inequality persists today in all spheres: economic, cultural, social and educational, etc.

My history is no different from that of so many other black female domestic workers who come from poor families. Driven out of the countryside by poverty and precarious living conditions, these families have no option but to send their sons and daughters off to work as cheap labour. The majority arrive in the large cities when they are still very young and become part of a child labour force that is one of the terrible consequences of the inequality and exploitation that exist in Brazilian society.

My father died when I was five and when I was ten my mother went to live with a person who would not accept her three children (she also died later, when I was thirteen). So it was that I went to work for a family, on the promise that they would send me to school. My job involved doing all the housework and looking after a two year-old. Far from my family and my loved ones, I was to experience discrimination that would mark my life forever. My employers made jokes at my expense, mainly about my hair and my family. I remember that once when my mother came to visit she spat in the back yard, a practice that is common in the countryside. After she left, my mistress made me clean the whole yard and mop the whole house, clearly implying -as I realized later on- that my family and I were dirty.

I lived with the children of the house, but was aware of the unequal treatment I received, although I too was merely a child. My mistress used to make my lunch from what her children left on their plates, saying, “Eat this, it’s clean”. The plate I used to eat off was different from the ones the others used, and it was kept under the sink. She used to hold me up as an example to her children, saying “If you don’t study, you will end up as servants”. It was a long process of denial of my self, of my humanity, during which time I lost my childhood, when my parents died. My tasks and the constant humiliation that I received meant that I could not be a child —run around, daydream, much less go to school, as had been promised. When my employers went out on Sundays, my place was behind them, carrying and looking after the two year-old, which, for a ten year-old, required a superhuman effort.

I wished things were different. I was the first to get up, I could not visit my family, could not study, make friends, and was always responsible for the little girl. I, too, was a young girl, but I worked like an adult.

The illusion of leaving the countryside, working in the city and going to school never became a reality. When my mother came to visit every six months, they used to give her leftover food, second-hand clothes and twenty reales (about eight dollars) in “payment” for my services.

During this period, my greatest suffering was caused by the beatings they meted out at the slightest excuse -telling me I was slow, a fool, lazy, etc. Like any other child I was curious, and when my mistress was not at home, her father, who was sixty years old, used to show me his genitals, masturbate and ask me to touch him. I had no idea that I was being sexually abused.

After more than thirty years in the profession, and after a period of mililtancy in the Unified Black Movement, the women’s movement and the labour movement, I can confirm that the nature of domestic work has changed little. Both here and in other Latin American countries, such as Mexico, Peru, Argentina and Guatemala, domestic workers continue to be exploited, treated without respect and with violence.

The difference between domestic work and other employment, is evident not only in the common practices that characterize it, but also in the law, since legally this work is not considered “nem régio” in the labour laws. Law 5858/72 which regulates domestic work, defines the domestic worker as “...one who provides services of a continuous nature and with no profit motive ...to a person or family in their home”.

In a sexist, racist and classist society, work that is socially and culturally associated primarily with black women and is defined as not-for-profit, is not valued. This non-recognition of the social value of domestic work is evident not only in Brazil, but in the majority of Latin American countries.

The story of my life is deeply entwined with my profession and this, in turn, is what orients all the activities that I am engaged in today.

As children we do not react and sometimes even believe that it is normal to be raped. However, I always had a thirst for knowledge and hoped for change, and I therefore sought a way to struggle against the injustices that I have lived through. Today my struggle takes place in several different spaces: in CONLACTRAHO (Latin American and Caribbean Confederation of Domestic Workers); Sindoméstico (Union of Domestic Workers in the State of Bahia); the Unified Black Movement, where I learnt to accept my blackness and not be ashamed of myself, of my hair, of the colour of my skin; and the State Women’s Council. In these organizations I fight for equality, recognition and guarantees for the social and labour human rights of domestic workers.

Labour discrimination of domestic workers takes both physical and psychological forms, leaving scars so deep that they can only be healed with the help of specialists. Violence is inflicted on us in the private sphere, often in “respectable” ways, which however, deny our citizenship rights. We are even denied a space to live, given that very often we live in our place of work, and we are always at the beck and call of our employer, having no legally fixed working day. In this way, our connection to the rest of society is lost, we have no time for pleasure or rest, to look after our health, or simply to live our lives and set up home with our own family. Our simple right to come and go is violated, in addition to the fact that being separated and distanced from our families is in itself an act of violence.

The domination and oppression exercised by employers in this private sphere becomes a process of brain-washing, and what is a situation of virtual confinement leads one to accept any information that one is given as the truth, without having the chance to engage in a critical analysis, even of the situation in which one finds oneself. And, if this were not enough, often the media presents an unreal image of our place in society. Those of us who are lucky enough to go to school -always to night classes- find that their schools are not good quality, do not value the human being, do not work with issues of self-esteem and citizenship. All these things lead one to lose one’s identity, and the different customs that one acquires in the workplace lead one to dream of a reality that is not one’s own.

All these things are happening today. They are still taking place. Those in power must make a commitment with the labour unions to deconstruct a 500 year-long process in which certain people got rich and powerful from exploiting the work of black women and men.

Some facts about “domestic work”: 

Ø  According to figures from the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), in 1995 in the state of Bahia there were 327,168 domestic workers;  

Ø  6.1% of white women workers work in domestic work, 8.8% of mixed race female workers and 14.7% of black female workers (IBGE figures for 1997);  

Ø  Figures from the year 2000 show that 54.2% of black women in Salvador are in precarious employment, including domestic work, unremunerated work in family businesses, and waged work without work permits.  

Ø  In the first semester of the year 2000, black women in Salvador earned on average 43.33% of what white men earned;  

Ø  In Brazil in 1997, 22.2% of the black population were illiterate, compared with the 9.0% of the white population;

Ø  In 1997, 58.9% of black women workers in the Northeast/Southeast region were not paying social security contributions, probably the result of the high concentration of workers in precarious employment in that region.  

Ø  Black female participation in the labour force in Salvador in the first semester of the year 2000 stood at 54.5%.  

Ø  In Salvador in 1998 there were four times as many black domestic workers as white ones.

Ø    Women receive a lower average income in terms of minimum wage.

Sources: http://www.mte.gov.br (Programme to Combat Discrimination at Work and in Professions); Maria Aparecida Bento, paper given at the Seminar on Race Relations and Economic Inequalities: Chamber of Deputies, Publications Committee, 2000, 67 pp. (parliamentary series; no.104); Mapra da População Negra no Mercado de Trabalho, São Paulo: INSPIR, 1999.

This document was written by GUACIRA C. DE OLIVEIRA and approved by the Articulación Feminista MARCOSUR