By Lillian Okenwa
Day by day Nigerians are inundated with stories of inhumane treatment meted on house helps by their mistresses. Notwithstanding that many of these young people are forced to do chores all day; every day, not allowed to go to school, eat at the table, or watch TV, a lot of them still get the most unfathomable physical abuse.
From 36-year-old Chioma Samuel who allegedly used a pressing hot iron and hot water to inflict injuries on her maid in Lagos, to a female lawyer in Anambra State, Adachukwu Cukelu-Okafor, who reportedly used a broken bottle, knife and electric iron to “brutalise” the child who lived with her in February 2024, the 36-year-old mother of four, Opeyemi Omoyemi, who used a stick and razor blade to inflict multiple injuries on the body of her 12-year-old houseboy, Joel Sunday, for allegedly stealing pieces of meat from the pot of soup in Ondo State, and many more across the country; the cruel treatment of house-helps continue to raise serious concerns among well-meaning Nigerians and calls for urgent action.
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Sometime in April 2022, Dr Mrs Marianne Ahmadu Ali, wife of a former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Ahmadu Ali physically assaulted and locked up her Personal Assistant, Ms. Deborah Longs Nanpon in a dog cage for three days without food or water. She was constrained to defecate and urinate on herself in that cage. Many of these violators most likely never imagine their victims could ever amount to anything but the story Francia Marquez is instructive.
In May 2022 Colombia elected its first black vice president, Francia Marquez. Marquez, a single mother, and a fiery environmentalist, worked as a maid before challenging international miners. It was gathered that there was virtually nothing in Marquez,’s past to have portrayed her chances of embarking on a political career or becoming a vice president.
Born on 1 December 1981 in a small village in the southwestern Cauca region of Colombia, she grew up with her mother. Pregnant at 16 with her first child, she was first forced to work in a gold mine a few kilometres from home to support her family. She was later hired as a maid, according to France 24. Her victory as Vice President marks a turning point in Colombia, a country that had been reportedly marred with social inequalities and historically governed by conservative elites.
On the campaign trail, she was said to have been exuberant and unabashedly dazzling. Embracing her identity, Marquez would wear her brightly-coloured Afro-Colombian garments teamed with big jewellery. She challenged the status quo, and proposed a brighter future with politics, saying “It’s time to move from resistance to power.”
“The great challenge that all of us Colombians have is reconciliation,” the 40-year-old said upon her victory, raising her fist, and smiling. The time has come to build peace, a peace that implies social justice. I am someone who raises my voice to stop the destruction of rivers, forests, and moors. I am someone who dreams that one day human beings will change the economic model of death, to make way for building a model that guarantees life,” she had said on her website.
With Marquez as VP in a country said to have historically denied the existence of racism, she remains a face of resistance. Yet her journey, from a young, black single mother to the country’s vice president remains extraordinary; what some described as a story of grit against the odds, ‘grass to grace.’
Marquez’s environmental activism had begun early, in 1996, when she was a 15-year-old teenager. Marquez became aware that a multinational company was planning to kickstart a project to extend a dam on the region’s main river, the Ovejas, which posed devastating effects on her community.
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The Ovejas River campaign marked the beginning of Marquez’s long struggle to defend the rights of Afro-Colombian communities and preserve their land. For the past 20 years, she fought relentlessly against the multinationals that allegedly exploit the area around the Ovejas River and sometimes force people to leave it.
She became popular in 2014. At that time, she was targeting the illegal miners who had set up operations along the river, digging for gold. The miners were also using mercury, a substance that is usually used to separate gold from water but contaminates water and destroys biodiversity. In protest, Marquez organised a “turban march”, which saw a protest march of 80 women walking from Cauca to Bogota, a 10-day, 500-kilometre journey.
The group demonstrated in front of the Interior Ministry for about 20 days. In the end, the environmentalists won, as the government conceded to wipe out all the illegal farms around the Ovejas.
Marquez later bagged a law degree and has held numerous forums. She taught in higher institutions and delivered speeches before political figures. She was awarded the Goldman Prize, the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for the environment, in 2018, for her efforts. The following year, she appeared on the BBC’s list of the 100 most influential women in the world.
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