“It was too overbearing and sometimes you feel like a slave in you own country and one day I just couldn’t take it anymore and me and another girl we just have to stand up fuh we rights. It was not a easy thing to do but sometimes you just have to say enough is enough and in de end we lost we job.”
The words of a 27-year-old mother of one who was fired four months ago from her job as a housekeeper at a hotel operated by Brazilians. She agreed to speak with me through the Red Thread organisation which assisted her and her colleague to ensure that they were adequately compensated by their former employer who had fired them on the spot. She felt she had to stand up to a man who made sexual advances and who exploited her and other women working at the hotel.
“I don’t really care if you carry me name because right now it does not matter,” she told me when I asked if she wanted her name published.