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“I gon get you to sleep with me in three years”… Govt. official told student
…“change of Govt. in 2015 saved me” – victim
Kaieteur News – A victim who endured years of sexual harassment by a senior PPP/C Government official has told this newspaper that the accuser once told her while she was still a student: “Yuh know what, I bet you in three years, I will sleep with you.”
Luckily, a change of government in 2015 not only rescued her from constant sexual harassment but saved the victim from falling into any trap that the official might have had planned for her. In an exclusive interview with Kaieteur News, the victim said the official was a Permanent Secretary (PS) at the time and said she had first met him in 2012. “I was a Hinterland Scholarship student at that time, a final year student at one of the government technical institutes and I was staying at one of the dorms and they brought him to introduce him to us”, the victim said.
The PS reportedly had dinner with the girls and chose to sit next to the victim while speaking to the group. He left soon after the meeting but the following, day he sent one of his staff to solicit her number for him. “A male staff from there on the scholarship programme came and he said to me ‘yuh know PS want your number,” the victim related while adding that at first she thought he was genuine and willingly sent her number. The victim continued that he started messaging her and at beginning it was just “normal conversation” until one day, he asked if she had a boyfriend. According to the young woman, by this time persons had found out that he was texting her and had warned her “to beware of him” and focus on her studies.
“It caught me off guard so I said to him, ‘aren’t you people in high places supposed to encourage us, especially the girls knowing that they are easily preyed upon , to take our education seriously and not worry about boyfriend ,” the young lady recounted as she remembered the PS responding by laughing and saying “sorry, sorry man”.
Her response, however, did not deter the PS, instead it fueled him to continuously harass the student sexually. The harassment continued until the victim finished her studies and went back to her village. A few months passed before she was employed with the government. Grateful for the opportunity, she accepted the job and returned to the city to work but she did not know that the PS would now become her boss. He reportedly picked up from where he left off and made his intentions clear that she will not escape from sleeping him this time. “He was very persistent… one of the things he used to do if I don’t answer his calls or messages is call my workplace. I can remember one time, I was at (named place (work place) and said he wanted to see me urgently”, recalled the former student. Believing that it was work related, she would travel to his office only to find out that it was only to harass her again. At the time, said the young woman, she was afraid to complain to anyone that the PS was constantly harassing her because she “really needed the job”.
However, the harassment became overbearing and in 2015, the woman said she decided to resign. “…Because of the constant pressuring from him, I felt like I was gonna resign from my work. I was gonna leave the job”, the victim said. She reportedly confided in a close colleague about her situation and intentions to give up her career but the friend encouraged her bear-up a little more. The friend reportedly told her it was elections time and it was looking like his government was going to lose and even if it wins then he might get shuffle around. It turned out that the PPP/C Government did lose the elections that year and the young lady was able to hold onto her job and work in environment where a PS was no longer sexually harassing her. Today, the victim is a grown adult woman and no longer works with the government but still remembers how close she was to crumbling under tremendous pressure from the PS.
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