NORTHERN IRELAND Testimony on Unwaged Housework

I am very glad of this opportunity to speak because I come from Northern Ireland and although Northern Ireland is always in the news a woman's point of view is never heard.

I come from Belfast which is occupied by the English State. They have the soldiers there to stop the people trying to free their own country. I come from one of the segregated areas which is Catholic. The state has the area sealed off by iron gates at the end of all the streets and we, the women of minority areas, have suffered a lot through state control. First because it is hard to get hold of any money. When you apply for a job in Northern Ireland you have to state which school you went to and all the firms know right away what religion you are.

Eight years ago my husband was made redundant at work. He applied for about 10 jobs which he was well qualified for and was turned down because of his religion. So he went to Scotland to work. The state paid his fare over and since then I have not seen him. He sends me some support for my three children whose ages are now 13, 9 and 8. What I get from him now is well below National Assistance level. Although the State knows this they will not give me a penny towards the support of my family. I have even applied for free school dinners for my children. I have been turned down because the government judges my needs by what my husband earns and not by how much he contributes to his family. The point is that I have no rights by law. I am not the only housewife in our area like this. I know of others who have five and six children and the state gives them a bare subsistence. When these people apply once a year for the clothing grant which they are entitled to for their children, they are turned down.

The State sees women as cogs in the wheels of their machine and cogs that are not even worth oiling. This is how the State works in the homes of Belfast.

The woman is not given any wage for all the work she does. She is not given any wage for the time she gives to the State which is 24 hours a day. I started doing housework when I was 10-11 years. The same as my daughters. And up until now I have never ever received a retaining fee either from the state or from my husband.
I am a jack-of-all-trades. More so since my husband left me as I now have to do in the home the jobs that he did, like papering and painting and general repairs to the house. Also I now have the full responsibility of rents, rates, electricity and trying to clothe the children, without the occasional extra pound from my husband and although I am now living below state subsistence level the State refuses to pay me for my work.

But this same State rules the home, from the day that you get a flat or a house. You are not allowed to paint the house the colour that you want; then when a woman is due to have a baby the State says which hospital she is to go to. In a lot of cases the doctor induces labour so that the baby is born in the State's time and not in its own natural time. When she leaves the hospital the State in the form of welfare tells you how much weight your baby puts on and when she should be walking and talking. Then when she is 4 years old they tell you the child must go to school. They decide what sort of an education she must have. Whether she has a high enough I.Q. for grammar school or Secondary. At what age she should leave. Then they try to put her into a job they want her to do and not what she wants to do. If the child is a slow-learner there is no hope for her. She will be given any old job and if she refuses she is then classed as a troublemaker. While the children are growing up and while the State is dictating what is right in the home the woman who obeys the State orders does not receive one penny in wage. But if through ill health or anything else she does not come up to standard then the State again steps in and takes the women to court. The reason a lot of women are in ill-health and suffer depression is because they have money problems in the home. If the state vvere doing what is right and paying a woman her rightful wage she would have very few health problem.

I applied for work at the employment exchange. The State trained me as a leather stitcher and there are  only two factories which would employ me and they are off the Shankill Road. I had to turn these jobs down because they are in the heart of a Protestant loyalist area. I have been threatened with my life if I am seen there again. I explained this to the Social Security officer. She made me sign a form to say ,I had refused two jobs and then I was told I would not get any benefits at all. All I am getting now is 5 pounds a week. If I was being, paid for housework I would not need to go out to work. My family and myself would not be living under the conditions we are living in.

Another way the State is in the home in Northern Ireland is through the soldiers, Women, whose husbands and sons have been interned or sentenced for political reasons, and their sympathizers when the soldiers raid one of these homes the women and children are insulted and degraded by the army. Many a time a woman wakes up with a soldier standing over her. The raiding Patrol had burst in the door and he would tell her that this is a raid - we are going to search your house - get out of the bed. When the woman asked him to leave the room he just laughed. She could not get her dressing gown. She had to wrap one of the blankets around herself and get out of the bed. If there was a military police woman with them if she or any of her children were girls and if she wanted to go the toilet - the policewoman would go with her. If the woman; tried to hit the soldier for being so insulting she would be beaten up. And make no mistake about it this is, the only time the State treats the women as equal to men: it is under interrogation and interning and sentencing them. Needless to say the only reaction which the State gets from the women is not submission but retaliation in the form of stone throwing, fighting and harassing the soldiers in turn. And also we want wages for the work we do,at home.

If wages for housework were granted in Northern Ireland it would mean a lot of people would give up their jobs in the factories as they are forced to work there at the moment through sheer necessity as there are not enough jobs in the country at the moment and the rate of unemployment is very high there.

And then the unemployed could get work and there would be a surplus of jobs which in turn would mean the large business people would have to raise the factory workers' wages to keep the people working for them. And because there would be a surplus of jobs, the fear which the Protestant people have of losing their jobs, which is one of the reasons the unionist government was in power so long would have been solved and tile people of N. Ireland would start to think what has the British government been doing with the money they have been making out of us all these years. And they would soon start to realize that the so-called British share-holders had been using them to line their own pockets and the ones they should have been fighting and fearing all along was not the minority but the State. Then the way to a free and united Ireland would be seen as a better course than unity With England.

When women unite and win wages for housework they will then realize how they have been exploited by the government of their countries and also will be able to be independent of men. Which in turn will make them realize that they need no longer be door mats to male bullying and dominance.

(01447)

Rose Craig