Category Archives: Violence Against Women

Domestic servant abuse extends beyond the novel, "The Help". Image Credit: Flickr

Last week, I finally saw the film version of “The Help,” based on the best-selling novel by Kathryn Stockett about the lives of African-American maids working in white people’s homes in 1960′s Jackson, Mississippi. I hadn’t read the book prior to watching the movie which I really loved.

Although the movie showed the racist and unfair treatment of primarily black women at the hands of their white employers, I am sure there were much worse stories the movie did not go into. In fact, just bringing up the topic of the rampant verbal, physical, and mental abuse people inflict upon their domestic help on my Facebook page brought up stories from Dhaka to Potomac, Maryland.

Both before and after the movie, as a Bangladeshi I could not help but let my mind wander beyond the racially segregated America of the 1950′s and 60′s to modern day lives of domestic servants back home. Domestic servant abuse, primarily of female maids but of men and children as well, is so rampant back home that it is practically considered cultural.

Every now and then you’ll hear a story of how someone you know beat their servant so badly he or she ended up in the hospital. And although you may get a gasp here or there as a response, it is largely accepted as a normal part of life. Very rarely do the police get involved and in the rare cases that they do, “justice” is always on the side of the employer. In Bangladesh, and in the Sub-Continent at large, people consider the people who work for them their disposable property to an extent.

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