How to tell whether your house help is mentally fit

The Standard on Saturday, on domestic workers who attacked a three-and-half-year-old boy and fed him to dogs. (Photo: Courtesy)

By Gardy Chacha and Kenneth Kipruto

Nairobi, Kenya: Anger and outrage best describe the reactions of our readers following the story carried by our sister paper, The Standard on Saturday, on domestic workers who attacked a three-and-half-year-old boy and fed him to dogs.

Concepta Achitsa and Vincent Odhiambo, domestic workers in one of Nairobi’s affluent suburbs, are facing charges of attempted murder for using a kitchen knife to expose the skull of their masters’ son. The two then chopped off the boy’s testicles, skinned his private parts and attempted to feed him to the dogs.

“OMG! What am I reading? Doing all these to an innocent three-year-old and getting away with 30 years in jail? They will surely come out and do the same to another innocent child... hell no!” Jessica Lubanaga commented.

“Very sad. If I were the judge, I would have given them a death sentence. How on Earth do you cut up an innocent child and feed him to the dogs and live with it? No way!” says Benard Lango. Kavuria Miguna says: “And he gets only 30years? These animals are supposed to hang!”

Perfect beings

But what really causes one to perform such acts?

Psychologists say that as a parent, the only effective way of preventing harm to your family from psychopaths is before you allow them access to your home. There is little you can do once they have established contact with the children.

According to Catherine Mbau, a psychologist at Arise Counselling Centre, individuals with mental disturbances have a sweet demeanour — to the average person they are very nice — making them appropriate for the job.

“Sociopaths will behave like perfect human beings: they will address you well, offer generous favours, become too friendly and portray a weird sense of goodness. They do this with huge expectations from you, which if not met, will call for wrath and punishment,” says Mbau.

Unlike sociopaths, Mbau says, psychopaths are driven with inert and strong convictions that killing has greater good — either for himself, for the world, or for a deity.

“Even though they are very good on face value, many times they are out of touch with their emotions. Be cautious of anybody who doesn’t respond to what happens to them. A mentally well person should be able to show grief, pain, anger, love and confusion ,” she says.

Digging deep

George Ouko, a sociologist at Catholic University of Eastern Africa, says the danger is more real when parents ignore or downplay unravelling snippets from an individual’s behaviour.

“Take keen interest in what children report to you. If they have marks on their bodies that can’t be explained, then you need to start digging deep to find out what happens while you are away. A person with ill motives will display double personalities when you are away and when you are back in the house,” he says.

For Dr Fredrick Owiti, a psychiatrist at Mathare Mental Hospital, every Kenyan should equip themselves with some basic tenets of psychoanalysis.

He says that one can make out psychopaths from a crowd almost instantly. “They lack courtesy and basic decorum. They don’t know how, when, where and how to behave the way they behave,” he says.

It is, however, possible that employers can also turn good-natured and well rounded individuals into ‘mentally sick’ people. According to Dr Owiti, parents should strive provide their househelps with fundamental needs for their own wellbeing. “You can’t treat a person like you would a wild animal and expect them not to be actual animals,” he says.

“They need to sleep as comfortably as the rest of the family. You need to task them with reasonable amount of work. Ill treatment can turn an innocent house help into a vicious murderer.”

The experts fundamentally agree that before you bring a person into your home, it is imperative that you dedicate time into finding out their history by talking to those who know them better.

“Were they raped or mistreated as children? Is there any kind of unresolved trauma they experienced as they grew up? If so, they are likely to vent on your children and your family. You ought to keep such a person away from your loved ones,” one expert advises.