55 percent of maids in Casablanca were beaten

Some 55 percent of maids in the Moroccan metropolis of Casablanca said they were beaten and 86 percent of them were verbally assaulted, says a survey conducted on a sample of 529 maids by the High commissioner for Planning.

The poll conducted in collaboration with the UNICEF and the local authority of Casablanca further revealed that 4.2 percent of these maids faced sexual harassment by their employers.

For a low salary ranging from 220 DHs to 500 Dhs per month (US$ 24 to US$ 55), these house employees don't have days off nor have annual holidays. In addition to housework, the maids also work babysitters, the High Commissioner for Planning says. They are the first ones to wake up and the last ones to go to sleep, the survey notes.

Some 22,940 maids under 18 years work in Casablanca. More than half of them (59%) are under 15 and 88.8% are from rural areas.

The majority of these girls started their work as housemaids at the age of 7 and some even at the age of five, notably to support their destitute families, the survey concludes.