Forty-six-year-old Roxanne Alkins, up until recently a cook in a Puruni Backdam mining camp, is seeking justice after she was assaulted by a co-worker whose sexual advances she turned down.
Still smarting from a blow to her mouth that left her bloodied, Alkins told Stabroek News that what hurt even more was her employers’ apparent lack of concern for her wellbeing and their failure to ensure that the man responsible for the assault was arrested.
Alkins, who has worked in the interior as a cook for many years but was never physically assaulted before, said the real root of the altercation was the fact that she rebuffed the man’s constant sexual advances.
She said women working in the interior are forced to endure the verbal advances of men who assume that once a woman works in the interior, she is willing to have sexual relations with them.
Alkins, who had been working at the camp for about a year, had only returned a month ago after a break and since then she said her attacker, who is the pit foreman, “was nagging me over frivolous and stupid things.”
On the morning of August 1st, they had one of their regular arguments and Alkins said the man cursed her and she responded in like terms, which angered him. “Just like that he just up and put one cuff in me mouth and I look fuh something to lash he but I ain’t see nothing, so I just turn away and start crying and I went and tell the GM [General Manager of the camp] ,” she recounted.
She said when the manager later asked the man why he assaulted her, he retorted, “I cuff she in she mouth because she cuss me about me mother.” He then jumped on a bike and rode away.
Alkins said she immediately made arrangements to leave the camp but before she left she reported the assault to the Guyana Geology and Mines Commission (GGMC) officer in the area and he advised her to make contact with the Guyana Women Miners Organisation (GWMO). On arrival at Bartica, she also reported the attack to the police and a statement was taken. Because of the length of time she took to reach Georgetown, she said she was unable to get a medical from the hospital, which she knows would have helped her case.
After returning to the city, Alkins went to her employers for her salary and to report what had happened. “But I didn’t like how they respond at all.”
“The woman say that she hopes he comes out and we could get to talk and sort out the problem. It is not a problem. She needs to ensure he comes down and let the police deal with the matter,” she stressed.
Alkins said she was very dissatisfied with her employers’ reaction. “You know, if I did get a gun and shoot he or a knife and chop him, they would have represented him. I feel really offended and bad about this, the way they treat me. They cares nothing and if I had done something to harm him, they would have gotten police to arrest me,” she said.
‘It takes a mature woman’
Meanwhile, Alkins said that for all the years she has been working in the interior, she has had to constantly rebuff many men who make sexual advances to her. There were also times when men would verbally abuse her but she had never had a physical encounter until the attack. “This whole thing come about because he ask for ‘lil wife’ and I keep telling he no and is like that he vex. It is a norm with men in the backdam and some women does feel that if they give in things would get better, but it does get worse, you just have try and be professional,” she said.
She admitted that the interior is not a good working environment for women and the constant harassment from men makes life difficult. “But it is very hard for young women working in the backdam.
“A lot of things you does be hearing, a lot of insults and it take[s] a mature woman to stand up,” she said, while hoping that the GWMO can really make life better for women in the interior, since it is their right to work anywhere they want.
President of the GWMO Simona Broomes told the Sunday Stabroek that for years women have had to endure various forms of abuse in the interior and the saddest part is that they have no form of protection, which is what the organisation is attempting to change. Many persons were unaware that all women in the interior are not prostitutes, Broomes noted, while adding that the organisation has done much work since it started but there is much more that needs to done to make the working environment in the interior more women-friendly. “We will continue to fight for women rights in the interior because it is their basic constitutional right to work for a living and no one should make it difficult for them,” she stated.
Broomes said that the man who cuffed Alkins should be charged and she would be helping the woman to follow-up because men need to understand that they have to treat women better whether it is in the interior or Georgetown.
She mentioned the case of a Linden woman who was hit in the eye last year and is still to get any justice even as she continues to suffer from the effects of the assault. As a result, Broomes called for employers to protect their female employees and to put systems in place to ensure that they are not harassed by their male colleagues.
Meanwhile, Alkins said while she would no longer work at the camp where the assault occurred, she would be looking for work in the interior as she has to continue to contribute economically to her home and the wages there are better. But when she returns to work, she will do so as a new member of the GWMO, after expressing the desire to help other women in the interior.
