Dear Editor,
We are a group of women who have begun to come together to discuss the burdens weighing on us. So far, we are pensioners, women on public assistance, domestic workers and security guards. Our ages range from 29 to 82. We are some of the women in Guyana with the lowest incomes – from mothers who get no wages to mothers on public assistance who get $4,900 a month to old age pensioners who receive $6600 a month to domestic workers and security guards who are sometimes paid as low as $2500-$3000 a week or $12000 a month.
Those of us who are mothers are sometimes forced to leave our children unsupervised and unprotected for long hours to do work for money. These jobs sometimes take us miles away from our homes, often times against our will. But even as we go the extra mile to ensure the survival of our families, we hear that we are bad mothers who neglect our children. Most of us would prefer to stay at home and raise our children. As mothers struggling to help our children survive we already have too much work. Mothers in poor households work the longest hours in any given day. Some of us are on duty for up to 16-22 hours a day with little or no leisure time. We don’t need more work. We go out to do more work because it is the only way we can get some money. We are fed up of having to choose between feeding our children and sending them to school or being there to look after them.
Why should we be forced to live like this?
Those of us on public assistance are women with disabilities or who are caring for a relative with a disability. We have to do the extra work of coping with homes and minibuses and public places and streets that are never designed with us in mind. Those of us who are caring for a relative with a disability have to put in the extra hours to tend to the special needs of that person and still find the time to tend to our own needs. This is the work we do for a monthly income of $4,900. If we don’t have anyone to collect this money for us, some of us spend half and sometimes close to the whole amount in passage to collect the money. We often prefer to leave the money to pile up for a few months before going to collect it in order to be able to get a lump sum, but even as we do this we have to be prepared to forego a lot of our needs while we wait for the money to accumulate.
Why should we be forced to live like this?
Those of us who are pensioners have made our contribution to this economy and are still making it. Some of us had jobs. All of us did voluntary work in our communities and many of us still do it. All of us did the work of caring for ourselves, spouses, grandchildren, other relatives, neighbours and friends and are still doing so even in our retired stage, but this time with even more difficulties. The meagre pension of $6,600 a month with which we are struggling to feed and protect ourselves and those we have to care for can’t begin to meet our expenses. One of us has to pay a rent of $6,000 per month. What is left of the monthly pension is $600. How can we survive on this? Another one of us pays a rent of $3,000 per month and is therefore forced to walk to and from home to a church daily from Monday to Friday just to be able to get some food. On weekends and holidays, especially the long August holidays, and Christmas season, she has to find her own food.
Another one of us has a sick husband to care for but has to steal some time to go to her grandchild’s school with sliced mangoes to sell at a low cost of $20 a slice, and then go home and sell snacks on a little tray in the front of her yard in order to get a little more money to eat. Some of us live in a home for the elderly where the rent is sometimes half or the whole of what we collect as pension – it depends on which room you get. Not only that, the conditions under which we live are unbearable.
When it rains, it is impossible not to get wet in the kitchen while we cook and there are other repairs that need to be done but the landlord is not doing them. We dare not withhold the rent because we would be thrown out in the street. These are just small examples of our huge struggle for survival.
Why should we be forced to live like this?
Those of us who are security guards are forced to work under very dangerous and unhealthy conditions. Most times we are sent to work at sites that are desolate with merely a baton as a defence. We most often have no toilet facilities, which leads to us venturing further into the already desolate area when nature calls. We work long hours, 12 hours and even 18 hours when there is no one to relieve us. Sometimes we opt to work the hours just to be able to earn a little extra money.
Those of us who are domestic workers have to wash, clean, cook, iron and sometimes care for a child or an older or sick person in other people’s homes for very little money. Some of us get as low as $4,500 per week out of which we have to pay transport. Sometimes we are employed to do a specific chore but gradually other chores are added but our wage remains the same.
Why should we be forced to live like this?
November 25 was International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Ending domestic violence is very important to us, but we are grieved that so many women who are better off fail to recognize and acknowledge the other kinds of violence which we suffer but they do not suffer with us. They do not even seem to know that the economic violence which we live with is as destructive as domestic violence, and that so often, if we suffer this economic violence, we are subject to other violence – not only domestic but in general, including from employers, the police, doctors and all kinds of professionals who think we don’t count if we have no money to count or to give them.
We are all tired of the conditions under which we are forced to live.
We want:
For those of us who are old age pensioners and people with disabilities:
Free transport. Minibus drivers very often don’t want to pick us up. They say we move too slow and we can’t take loud music.
Better arrangements at the post offices for those of us who have to go there to collect our pensions and public assistance money. No more standing for hours in long lines (sometimes before 6 am just to get an early space) in the yard and in rain.
Some of us go there without eating and those of us who eat before we go get hungry after spending such lengthy time in the lines. Those of us receiving public assistance for ourselves or the people we are caring for who have permanent disabilities should not be made to go through the hassle of being reviewed every six months.
For those of us who are security guards:
Safe and sanitary worksites. No more unprotected, desolate sites, no more being forced to wander into the bushes when nature calls. Reliefs must be on time; no more working for 18 or even 12 hours at a time. When we sign off from this job we still have to do the job waiting at home.
For those of us who are domestic workers:
No more adding on of tasks we are not employed to do. Proper recognition for the importance of the work we do and a respectful salary, decent meals and rest breaks in the day. We are not machines.
For all of us:
A living income. We are fed up of worrying about what else we can do to survive from day to day. We are fed up of this hand-to-mouth living. The government and the business people who decide how much money we should get, can’t live on the amounts they expect us to live on. We challenge them to come and manage any one of our homes for one day to see if they would survive.
We want a living income. We have earned it.
Yours faithfully,
Louise Hamilton – Pensioner
Dhanmattie Balkissoon – Domestic
worker
Michelle Bunbury – Security guard
Bibi Alie – on public assistance