It is fast becoming a trend in the country that domestic staff put an end to the lives of their employers. In Lagos, Enugu, Abuja and Port Harcourt, among other cities, many maids had been arrested and prosecuted for the murder of their masters-turned-victims.

In October, last year, an Associate Professor at the Federal University of Technology, Minna, Dr. Funmilola Adefolalu, met her untimely death in the hands of a disgruntled house help, Joy Afekafe. The 14-year-old had only been engaged for the task of assisting the lecturer in doing household chores three weeks before she turned her murderer.

In police net, the house help was said to have confessed to the crime, ascribing it to termination of her appointment by her boss for persistent misdeeds. When the teenager turned up and the lecturer let her in after she had been sent packing from the home, thinking that she had come to show remorse and plead for forgiveness and reinstatement, she got two equally young boys, her classmates, to smash stool on her head, and followed with stabbing with knives until she died.

The story Is not different from many others. They are usually young. When they did not stab, they poisoned, especially when they are as young as eight or nine years old. This has raised a question of immaturity and juvenile delinquency. While sympathising with the victims, it calls To question the trend of exploiting young, poor children contrary to the Child Rights Act and convention of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

Governments at the federal and state levels should device means of checking this growing tendency in the interest of the society. Young parents who are in formal employment are won’t to go that route, especially when they are in the cities. In Lagos, for example, young mothers find it difficult to prepare children for school or pick them after school hours as the traffic situation is punishing. Some do not go for outright strangers, but children of relations from the village, believing those could be better managed, but this has even been worse as they tend to tell stories of cruel treatment that are sometimes untrue.

It is not always that it results in death. Some of the housemaids engage in using the toothbrush of the children entrusted to their care, others rape them, while some others steal jewelry and money from the house and bolt away.

Early this month, one maid in Abuja was caught on CCTV urinating in the teacup. After such a disgusting practice, she returned the cup to the rack without bothering to wash it. A further review of the camera showed that it was not an isolated practice. She had been stealing food from the refrigerator.

Experts have counselled that would-be employers should be more diligent in probing into the background of prospective employees. Some insist that it is better to employ the services of recruiting agencies for the purpose. But, it has been said that this is not necessarily a way out since even nieces brought from the village have turned out to be as notorious.

These incidents point to the need to become more professional as is the case in the developed countries. It is not the way to help indigent relations. In developed countries, housekeeping is serious business. The housekeepers are trained, mature and have the needed references. While going for children may be cheaper, it is too dangerous a road to take. The law enforcement agents should engage psychologists and sociologists in charting a template that would check this crime. There are too many stressors and shocking developments in the society to allow this trend continue.

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