False Bay domestic worker paid nothing for 14 years

Deng’s lawyers have denied her allegations.

Francis Deng was previously Special Adviser to the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the Prevention of Genocide.

Mafita came to South Africa in 2001. She had been working as a domestic worker for diplomats in Harare when Daniel Deng, who was working for a Catholic charity and had become a Zimbabwean resident, met her. When he and his Zimbabwean wife, Jem Koti, moved to South Africa, he persuaded Mafita to come with them and take care of their child, who was born a few months later.

Mafita says Deng agreed to pay her R2,000 a month. But 14 years later, she has never been paid anything at all, she says.

She says she looked after the child for eight years and ran the Deng household while Koti studied in the United States and Deng travelled, doing fundraising for the NGO he worked for.

When the child turned eight, her mother had her daughter brought to join her in the US.

“The Deng’s friends and relatives from overseas used to come and reside here in False Bay. I fed them from my own pocket. During the night they went to pubs, expected to get food when they returned, and in the morning I would clean after them. They never gave a cent. One of the children abused drugs and would vomit and relieve himself in his clothes and I cleaned after him.”

She says the Deng child was enrolled in various activities “and I made a big effort to take her there, with public transport and sometimes on foot. Other parents in the community sometimes offered us transport back. There are times when I used my own money to pay for the child’s activities.”

Asked why she had kept quiet for so long, Mafita said: “It’s because Daniel said not to worry about what people are saying. He said he would honour his promise and pay me every cent I worked for.

“I also had a mother- son relationship [with him] since the time he brought me from Zimbabwe and I had too much trust in him. He promised to pay me once-off when I retire.”

In 2014, according to Mafita, Deng decided to fire her. She says he had divorced his wife and the child was living with her mother in the United States.

But he refused to give Mafita any money, and, after initially trying to help, says Mafita, Koti also cut links with her - even putting the phone down on her when she phoned the US last November to wish the child a happy birthday.

“When I refused to go without my money, Daniel hired a lawyer to throw me out of his property. He lied to the lawyer that I am his tenant and I am refusing to leave his property. The lawyer then sent me a letter telling me to vacate the premises. I told the lawyer my struggle with Daniel and asked him why I would rent a mansion like that in False Bay and not an affordable shack in Khayelitsha? Where could I get money to rent such a big house? I told the lawyers to ask Daniel how I got to live in that mansion for 14 years.”

The Deng house in False Bay. Photo by Tariro Washinyira.

A few weeks later, she says, she was visited by a man claiming to be a lawyer who offered her R40,000 and warned her that “a Malawian man” who had worked for him and who “was also difficult like you” had “disappeared”, leaving a wife and two children.

She says the same man returned with immigration officers, but, though Deng had never helped her obtain residence documents, she had successfully applied for asylum papers without his help. She showed them to the immigration officers, who did not take the matter further.

Nine months ago, Mafita said, Deng had her water and electricity cut off and the doors and windows to the rest of the house closed. A new tenant on the second floor told her the owner wanted her out and cut the electricity wires to the ground floor where she lives.

She said she had been living without electricity or water since then, using a small stove, and candles for light and her food had rotted in the fridge.

Attempts to reach Deng in the US were unsuccessful. His lawyer, Harry Trisos, of Buirski & Trisos Attorneys, said in an email that Deng “strenuously denies” that he had employed Mafita.

He said the owner of the premises, Francis Deng, had given Mafita “and other illegal occupants of the premises notice to vacate the premises, as is his legal right to do”.

“She has refused to vacate the premises. Legal proceedings are currently being instituted against all illegal occupants of the premises.”

He accused Mafita of being an illegal immigrant, of illegally letting out rooms in the Deng house to “persons from Zimbabwe and elsewhere”, making “an estimated income of up to R9,000 per month”, and of conducting a second hand clothing business.

Trisos said Deng’s tenant had been tasked with renovating the house and accused Mafita of intimidating and assaulting him.

In a second email, he added: “The defamatory comments made by Gladys Mafita, a person who has flouted the immigration laws of South Africa for over 12 years, should be seen in the context of a continuing action by herself to extort by any means whatsoever, payment of monies to which she is not entitled.”

Mafita denied all the allegations.

“It is absurd the lawyer still claims I never worked for Daniel,” she said.

She said her son sold clothes but that was nothing to do with her. She sometimes sewed goods for sale at the Muizenberg flea market, she said.

“I was promised a monthly wage by Daniel to be paid at the end of my service with him, and that is the main issue. Whether I made money for survival on the side has nothing to do with the promise he made to me. How was I supposed to survive without a monthly wage? “

“The ambassador and his wife Dorothy Deng do not want to hear my story and are always telling me, “Go back to Zimbabwe, to settle with your family. Your children will take care of you.”

“But I can’t just leave, I want my money. I stayed here in Cape Town for a long time without seeing my relatives. They expect me to bring money.”

“I also want to go back home. but I want my money.”

Gladys Mafita was ordered to remove her belongings and to leave her employer’s house. Photo by Tariro Washinyira.

Contacted in the US, Dorothy Deng refused to comment, referring GroundUp to Trisos and cutting off the conversation.

Daniel Deng’s phone was not answered.

A friend of Mafita’s, Helen Lovkis, who used to provide Mafita with transport for her vegetables to the market before her garden was destroyed by the Dengs’ new tenant, said, “I know her employer Daniel J Deng and his family. I am a witness to the life of Mafita for 14 years. I am prepared to stand up in court anytime to tell her story.”

“All the neighbours know Gladys,” said Lovkis.

Glendyr Dade, an estate agent in False Bay, said when she met Mafita 14 years ago she thought Mafita was Deng’s mother because of the good relationship they seemed to have.

“I was enslaved,” said Mafita.

“I crocheted doilies the whole night to put food on the table for their child, now they are dumping me.”