The Silent Abuse Suffered By Nannies And Au Pairs
In the playground of Ravenscourt Park, in Hammersmith, west London, three nannies – Sara from Spain, Kasia from Poland and Daniela from the Czech Republic – are sitting on a bench, watching their young charges splash in the communal paddling pool. All are now happy in their work, but when they arrived in Britain as au pairs, things were very different.
Thank you 'Socalinannies' for Contributing this Article.
6 comments:
This article is very sad, and very true. Being an aupair can be a wonderful experience, but that really depends on the family you work for!
It can suck that some people end up with crap families, but at the same time...they can quit.
it's so not easy to quit as an au pair! these girls don't have the resources and family in the host country. the host families are the visa sponsors and au pairs live in. where are they going to go? a lot of girls save up to go abroad and would prefer not to fail and go home with not even a nice experience abroad.
Quit to where??? In Europe isn't like USA, where you have agencies and they must take care of the au pair - sometimes people travel without agency. I did, and end up in a wonderful family - but I've seen some girls working 72 hours non-stop while her host mom needed to "relax".
Thanks to those who stood up for the aupairs. A lot of people think that it is just easy to "quit" and find another job. Most of the time, you do not get paid much, and your employers pay for your airline tickets, and would demand the money right then and there if you left. There are so many reasons why some aupairs cant just up and leave.
After having a friend in Italy who worked as an Au Pair and suffered abuse, I felt the need to share these abuses with others. If you make the equivalent of $150 a week, that's not a lot of wiggle room to save money for an emergency.
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