27th September 2011

 Domestic worker ‘abused’ at prison home

A domestic worker claims she was called a k***** and a bitch by her employer, who then forced her to sleep in a laundry, locked her out when she entertained guests and pulled her by the ears.

On Monday, Ellen Molehane quit her job after only two months of working for Rina Burger.

Burger and her family live in a house at the Johannesburg Prison, where Burger’s husband is a prison warder.

Asked to respond to the allegations on Monday, Burger yelled: “What? What?” Then she slammed down the phone and did not take any further calls.

The Star has obtained a sound clip of the alleged racial abuse. In it, a female voice can be heard ranting in Afrikaans: “Jou moer… jou bliksem… moenie k** praat nie” (Get lost, you bastard, don’t speak s***).

Molehane said she had been excited when she received a phone call from Burger in August offering her the job. Burger had been referred to Molehane by another domestic worker. Molehane immediately made the 430km journey from her home in Pampierstad, near Taung, North West, to Joburg to start work on August 4.

But, claims Molehane, the verbal abuse started within days of her arrival. “Whenever she returned from work, she would scream and swear at me. She called me ‘k*****’ and ‘bitch’ and ‘jou ma se p***’,” Molehane recalled.