– after being raped while on the job

A FIFTY-eight-year-old woman attached to a Linden security firm is having second thoughts about her job after being raped while on night duty last week.

The woman, who was still visibly shaken while speaking with the Guyana Chronicle, said that her assailant looked to be between 20 to 30 years old.

“I was on duty; I did my last check at approximately 02:30hrs the morning,” she said.
“Then, about 02:35hrs, this man came and was banging at the door, asking me to open it… “I did not open the door, so he break open four louvre panes on the hut and came in, held on to me from behind and sexually assaulted me…
“He then took away my phone and went away with it.”

She said that in all her 24 years as a security guard, this was the first time something of this nature has ever happened to her, and she is now thinking whether she should continue to work as a security or not.
After the incident, the woman said, a report was made to the Mackenzie Police Station and she was taken by the police to the Linden Hospital Complex where she was examined by a doctor.

The examination proved that she was indeed sexually assaulted. She said she never got a good look at her assailant, as he’d used a broken bottle and demanded that she not look at him, as he was not wearing a mask. “When I turn around to look at him, he chuck me in my face and told me not to look,” the elderly woman said.

MORE THAN SICK LEAVE
After the incident, she said, the doctor gave her seven days sick leave, and her employer opted to grant her leave with pay. She, however, had to be given more sick leave and is saying that more needs to be done to compensate her, since she was attacked and raped on duty.

“I was a bit nervous still, and so because of what happened, I had to take seven more days on my own,” she related.

And even though she was told that she would not be placed back at that location, and will work strictly day shifts, the woman is still too traumatised to return to work.
“I want to know if that is all the compensation I’ll be getting for an incident like that on the job,” she said.

She is calling for security managers at her place of employ to listen to staff and to put things in place for them to be better protected.

She’s also calling for two persons, one of whom should be male, to be posted at secluded locations in the evenings and for them to be armed with batons.