WORKER WHO SAYS SHE WAS RAPED ON THE JOB FINDS SUPPORT FROM DISMISSED PRECARIOUS WOMEN WORKERS
Agnes Mphela (not her real name) is a contract worker who has been battling managers, police and prosecutors to get justice against a manager who she accuses of harassing, raping and threatening to kill her since 2008. “He has power over us,” she says. “He is the one in the client company who decides who gets contracts. We are told by our employer that we cannot talk against the client. This is the power he is using against us.”
Agnes became a member of Precarious Women Workers of Gauteng when the group stood by her throughout 2020 and 2021 as she fought for justice in this case. She lives in Soweto, Johannesburg and works for a firm providing safety and security services to the state-owned Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa. Precarious Women, as members refer to the group, supported Agnes emotionally through intense one-on-one conversations and group debriefing sessions as she dealt with the trauma of the attacks and the secondary abuse by police and court officers and procedures. The group also employed a tactic they simply call Go Togethers, where the members accompanied her as she tried to get the police and the courts to offer redress for the attacks and protection against the attacker who she believes still posed a threat to her.
Agnes explains that the law failed her and women in South Africa. Many women contract workers are in the same position as her. “The government doesn't help us,” she says. “The police did not even investigate and the prosecutor kept saying he has rights. But what about me? I don’t have rights.”
After it became clear that the state institutions were not going to offer redress or protection, Agnes states that she is ready to move on with the help of Precarious Women, who organises self defence training programmes where members prepare for mutual protection and direct action against threats and perpetrators. She intends to organise her women colleagues at work to join, because they are all at risk of harassment and violence at work and at home, although this is difficult because of danger and fear.
Precarious Women Workers of Gauteng was started by a group of women who were leaders of a campaign to win permanent jobs for labour broker workers at Heineken’s brewery outside of Johannesburg. They aimed to use the methods of collective organising and direct action that they developed in this workplace struggle to address the violence they face as women. Precarious Women is one of the groups that Autonomous works with and also follows principles of voluntary cooperation, direct action and autonomy.
Agnes swings between hope and despair. “I don’t know how Precarious Women will help me, but I know they will,” she says. She reflects, “I am not happy. He is happy. He hated me and raped me. I am not good in my heart.”