Rapper voices Latin housemaids' suffering

A Brazilian housemaid-turned-rapper has cast a spotlight on the suffering of Latin America’s millions of exploited domestic workers by chronicling the abuse they receive from their employers. For seven years Joyce Fernandes was one of six million workers that cook, clean and mind children for Brazilian families.

Now 31, she is a qualified history teacher, recorded rap artist, anti-racism activist and all-round celebrity. She is better known by the alias Preta Rara, or “Strange Black Woman.”

Over melodic hip-hop beats she voices fierce calls for social justice. Her face with its bright blue lipstick and nose-ring has appeared in media around the world.

After leaving domestic service, she started writing about some of her experiences online in a Facebook page titled “I, Housemaid.”

“Joyce, we hired you to cook for us, not for yourself. Please bring your own food and cutlery,” she recalled her employer telling her.

“Eat before us at the kitchen table if possible. It is a question of maintaining order in the household.”

Fernandes’s tales prompted countless others to post their ordeals in domestic work: working long hours without food for snobby families. “I think it is the voice of domestic employees who have wanted to speak out for a long time but had no particular channel to do so,” Fernandes told AFP.