Rise in number of female security guards a worrying trend

Mar 13, 2017 News

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– Women rights activists

It is no secret that women have been dominating the private security sector. While some may see this as an achievement, in the sense that women have been able to invade a male profession, others in more academic circles view it as worrying.
“It can’t be seen as an achievement if the males are leaving the profession to take up better paying jobs in the interior and so,” Deputy Vice Chancellor of the University of Guyana, Dr. Barbara Reynolds opined.
Another consequence of having a large number of women working in the security sector is the fact that many of them are often mothers of young children. Many of them are even single mothers who are forced to leave their children unattended as they seek to make ends meet.
“Many of these children are left vulnerable to various forms of abuse, including sexual…and even in some cases, incest,” Lawrence Lachmansingh of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Roman Catholic Church said during a recently held women’s forum.
Women’s rights activists from Red Thread and Guyanese Women Across Race have often complained, among other things, about the conditions under which female security guards work.
There is no definitive number of registered female security guards operating in the country, but officials at the Ministry of Social Protection have told this newspaper that women are soon becoming the majority in the security industry.
Kaieteur News spoke with three female security guards, but none of them wanted to be identified.
The women, who are all friends, are also single mothers. Two of the three women have only benefited from a primary education, and have found it very difficult to find other better paying jobs.
“Everywhere you go, they asking fuh CXC…even if you go to clean toilet at some hotel or something, they asking fuh CXC. Things happen and I couldn’t go to school, but I is not no dunce…I just had to eventually settle for doing guard work, because I had to get money fuh mine me children,” one woman said.
The mother of three, who resides in Grove, East Bank Demerara, said that she attempted many money-making ventures, but none of them worked out the way she had hoped.
“Watch, I try selling food…I had me own stall and I start selling, but Government seh is they land and they bruk down all my things…then, I start planting a lil garden at the back of me yard…was a lil space, but I did trying with it. The problem is that the yard low, and every time lil rain fall, it flooding up the place and I losing,” the security guard added.
She explained that when she leaves for work at around 18:00hrs, her three children are left unattended, and vulnerable to lurking predators.
“I does worry, but I can’t do anything. I got to work so that they could eat and go to school,” the woman explained.
For many years, Red Thread and Guyanese Women Across Race have been complaining about the poor conditions and pay that security guards, particularly women, are subjected to.
In a joint letter to Stabroek News dated July 25, 2009, women’s right activists- Andaiye, Wintress White, Joycelyn Bacchus and Shirley Shafeek complained that “Unlike male security guards who are often older and/or retired men because their labour is cheaper than that of younger men, women security guards are often mothers of young children. These are women who have more expenses, but who are attractive to the employers precisely because they can be paid less since their responsibility for children forces them to accept conditions that men of their age would reject.”
The letter went on to complain about the conditions under which female security guards in the private sector are often forced to work.
“The conditions of work create unnecessary risk. Women security guards often have little say over which shifts they will work, although at night they are more vulnerable to sexual and other physical violence. Patricia Rose and Simone Coleridge, two women guards, were murdered on the job this year alone (2009).  There is a woman who told us of being beaten unconscious by a thief,” the letter read.
Eight years later, women in the security sector are no more prepared than they were back then. Most of them are still armed with a mere baton, and in some cases, no weapon at all.
The letter had even mentioned cases where women were being abused by the residents of homes they are assigned to guard.
“One fine, upstanding citizen used to throw water on her guards to make sure they kept awake,” the letter alleged.
While such instances are not rampant today, security guards, particularly females, are still looking for representation.
In a recent letter to Kaieteur News, March 1, 2017 to be exact, President of the Clerical and Commercial Workers’ Union, Sherwood Clarke, called for the establishment of a union to represent the rights of security guards.
“Security guards from different parts of the country and working in various jobs and industries have for a long time fallen between two stools and have had no representation for their many grievances,” Clarke wrote.
He went on to explain that many of the security guards work in private companies, and are denied many of their rights.
“Because they are not considered to be ordinary workers, they cannot be represented by a union and because they are not quite on par with policemen, they have no claims to the awards and conditions of service that go to members of the police force.”
Clarke said that for a long time now, men and women employed as security guards have been complaining about their official conditions of work and their low pay rates.
“All their appeals have, so far, fallen on deaf ears.”

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