Seven months after going into the Omai Backdam to work as cooks with a dredge owner, two women had to be rescued on Saturday by the Guyana Women Miners Organisation (GWMO) with assistance from the Ministry of Natural Resources & the Environment and the police following the miner’s refusal to pay them and not having money for transportation.
A relative of one of the women contacted GWMO’s President, Simona Broomes who upon hearing the story contacted Minister Robert Persaud and asked for assistance to remove the women who hail from Kwakwani. With the ministry’s help and that of the Guyana Geology & Mines Commission (GGMC), Broomes said a vehicle, mines officer and a police officer were provided for them to make the trip.
Yesterday, the women, 30-year-old Vashawn Hopkinson, a mother of two and 21-year-old Dalieann Joseph were staying at a city hospital compliments of the GWMO. Broomes, who was distraught over the women’s plight and the fact that she could not have assisted other women who approached her when she visited the area on Saturday, says she would help the women file a complaint against the dredge owner today with the Ministry of Labour.
“That is the most we can do, I cannot force the man to pay the women and I spoke to him while we were in the backdam but while he said he will pay them he did not give a date,” Broomes told Stabroek News.
Speaking to this newspaper yesterday the two women recalled being hired by the man in April last and he promised to pay them $120,000 each per month. They left their children with their mothers and travelled into the backdam hoping to make a quick “turnover” and return with some money to assist their families.
The younger of the two said that she informed the dredge owner that she wanted to go home three months after they commenced work because he son was celebrating his birthday. But that was not to be as just days before he was expected to pay them, one evening the man launched into a tirade of abuse at the women because he claimed he found two rice grains in the water they had boiled for his workers to make tea.
“This man start cuss we, tell we how we is … bad woman, …if you hear things wah this man tell we. Wah he ain’t tell we is wah he ain’t want tell we. I cry but we sleep and the next morning this man get up and start cussing, I cry, I cry but we did not answer and we shame to go outside in the morning,” Hopkinson related.
The following day the man told them that he did not want them in his kitchen but he did not inform them about their payment and they had no money to leave the backdam and no money to support themselves. This was after they got up before 5am every day to cook for the workers and later prepared lunch and dinner for them.
One month after this incident Hopkinson said she overheard the man saying that he would tear down the camp she was staying in where she had remained even though she was no longer working with him because she had nowhere else to go. This prompted her to leave and seek lodging at a nearby shop while Joseph met someone in the backdam and recently started working with another dredge owner. Yet, she said she had no “real” money to go home to her two-year-old son.
“I work too hard fuh me money…he stain we name on dah backdam,” Hopkinson said as she burst into tears.
Sobbing uncontrollably, the woman said that she has worked in the interior before as a cook but was never denied payment.
“First thing if we go home and we don’t have money you guh hear we went in the bush doing we own thing and that is wah dem done talking, I have a house to build, she have she house to build it is very, very hard fuh we,” Joseph said.
She said she had no intention of “picking fare” to get money to return home but said she would plait men’s hair to make some money to upkeep herself while in the backdam hoping that the dredge owner would eventually pay up.
Both of the women fell ill with malaria while in the backdam and they revealed that a malaria tablet is over $3,000 while a simple pain tablet can cost as much as $1,000.
“You deh in deh you sick with malaria, you can’t come out to see the doctor or nothing you have to deh drinking a lot of tablets,” Joseph lamented.
But what makes the situation more tragic for the young women is the fact that the dredge owner is in a relationship with Joseph’s relative. Hopkinson said that was one of the reasons she decided to work with the man.
On Saturday when the women were removed from the backdam, Joseph said she begged her relative to talk to the man to pay them but her pleadings fell on deaf ears.
The two women said that there are many other women in the Backdam who are experiencing hardship and according to them there are also very young girls who are “picking fare in the backdam.”
“Some of them picking fare with the men dem, end up living with deh men and now deh men beating them”, Joseph said with a sad shake of the head.
They told the story of a woman who was also not paid after three months of working at a camp and she has now been forced to travel farther into the backdam to work at another camp because she does not want to return to her ten children without money.
“I need my money, this man is too wicked,” Hopkinson lamented.
She has a sister in Canada who has been assisting her but Hopkinson said she does not want to depend on her sister as she has her own family and that is why she decided to travel to the interior to fend for herself even though the father of her children assists.
She said she tried finding work at other camp sites but “all dem place full up nobody ain’t gat no work.”
“I does be in the bush and I seeing what women going through and it need to stop, dem dredge owner need to start paying dem women we does work too hard. Is not all dem woman that go in deh bush does go to pick fare,” Hopkinson said, tears flowing down her cheeks.
‘Bully’
Broomes said she spoke to several persons in the backdam who told her the dredge owner is a “bully” and that the women worked very hard during the months he had employed them.
She met with the dredge owner who is known as ‘Betsie’ and who informed that the women did work with him and he had agreed to pay them but he has no money and he put them off of his camp because they were plaiting hair on his camp site and he found two rice grains in the tea water.
As she spoke to the man, Broomes said the women started to cry and the elder of the two dropped to her knees and begged the man to pay her but he did not budge and it was there she promised that she would ensure they file a complaint with the labour ministry.
“I think that the authorities shouldn’t really see this as a private matter that the woman have to get a lawyer to go after the dredge owner to get their money. Where would they get money to pay a lawyer when they don’t even have money to pay their passage to come out?” Broomes asked.
She said the exploitation of women in the interior is sickening and said something has to be done to stop this trend. Broomes said the organization has referred more cases to the Ministry of Labour and she called on the authorities to “care” for the women who are suffering as there is so much they can do and no more.
The GWMO president was high in compliments for the support she received from Persaud’s ministry and the police because she said without this she may not have been able to help the women.
Hopkinson said her 13-year-old has been selected to go to Brazil to play basketball and she is in anguish over the fact that she does not have money to give him for the trip.
Broomes said she has since asked some of her members to make donations to the tune of US$200 for the child to make his trip and to also raise some money for the women to return to Kwakwani.
She said the GWMO is not a funded organization but the members are willing to support in whatever way they can while revealing that many companies have been encouraged not to support the organization even though the gold industry is one of the more lucrative ones in the country.
“We are not a political party and we are not attacking anyone, we just want help for the women in the industry…we are in a male dominated sector and while on the coast abuse is highlighted but for heaven sake no one is thinking about the women in the interior,” Broomes noted.
