Moroccan Domestic Workers Face Increased Hardship Amid COVID-19 Crisis

Domestic workers do not have a secure job and are forced to endure mistreatment in their workplaces. This situation has worsened during this period of health crisis related to the coronavirus. Hayat, a cleaning lady, confides to the Arabic-language newspaper Al Ahdath Al Maghribia that she has given up seeing her family to preserve her job. "I can’t join them, because there is also the risk of contracting the disease," she adds.

Since the entry into force of the state of health emergency and confinement last March, the young cleaning lady explains that she is overwhelmed with work. "There is no respite," she laments. In addition to these difficulties, cleaning ladies also have to face the competition from sub-Saharan African cleaning ladies. "In this context of health crisis, families prefer single sub-Saharan African women, who will agree to stay at home as long as the confinement is still in effect," explains a recruiter operating in the informal sector.

Another explanation: these families make this choice because several Moroccan cleaning ladies fled the homes of their employers on the eve of Eid al-Adha after the authorities banned travel to and from eight cities in the kingdom.