Are you a slaveowner?

In typical Kenyan fashion, we kicked the can down the road. We have now run out of road. In 2013 the process of domesticating parts of the Domestic Workers Convention started in earnest. Among the obvious ones was the setting of a minimum wage for domestic workers. We were almost unanimous in declaring that a minimum wage was unfeasible. I was not one of the naysayers. I think domestic workers deserve more. If you cannot afford the minimum wage, don't hire a domestic worker; do the work your damn self.

I forget who, but someone examined the subsidies that domestic workers involuntarily give their employers. If we paid domestic workers what they were truly worth, few of us would have two-income households, even fewer of us would have the time or the money to complete post-graduate studies. We would have considerably less disposable income to splurge on holidays, cars and sundry luxuries. I would also add that in a world where ayahs were paid what they were worth, baby-making would not be the national sport it seems to be - except for the booze-addled Mt Kenya Region.

The ten thousand and nine hundred shillings that the Ministry of Labour, Social Security and Services has gazetted for Nairobi, Kisumu and Mombasa is high, if it constitutes a significant proportion - say 10% - of your take-home pay. But if you are in the world of six-figure salaries, you should be the last person to bitch on TV about how expensive domestic help is: you are getting a subsidy at that price and you should gladly pay it even if the domestic help lives in your house, eats your food and uses all your other facilities.

You could, of course, do the other thing Kenyans are fond of: disobey the law and pay the domestic help a pittance for their services. If you do that then you are forever barred from ever bitching about grand corruption and the thieving nature of public servants. There is an alternative, but it would cost you even more. You can contract the domestic help to come in on certain days to perform specific duties for a cash-on-delivery kind of deal. Don't live under the illusion that there are hundreds who would kill for the chance to perform menial tasks for you for two hundred shillings. A two-hour engagement to launder your clothes, air them and clean the house should set you back a thousand shillings. The rest of the week you can fend for yourself.

The case for a minimum wage is selfish too? Those images of ayahs torturing their wards are disturbing; that kind of rage must arise from some place and under-appreciation is a powerful motivator. Sure, an ayah may be idle for large parts of the day; but it would be you wiling away the hours while your babe slumbered, wouldn't it? If the home caught on fire, the ayah would be there to rescue the infant. So why would you have her rot her brain on telenovelas just so you could have a career? When she turned on your child, there would be none else to blame but you.

We have reached the end of the road. This is a problem we must find a solution to. Or we could withdraw from the Domestic Workers Convention and simply endorse the Emirati philosophy of slave-ownership.