Assaulted & abused – Women facing hell from ‘loader men’ and bus conductors
It is like negotiating an obstacle course for many females who have to seek public transportation at bus parks and hubs across the island as the so-called ‘loader men’ and conductors push, pull, and sometimes, force them into vehicles.
With the complaints growing louder, a Sunday Gleaner team last week witnessed several females visibly upset, and some seemingly scared, as they were pulled, held, hugged, and verbally abused by brutish men – with schoolgirls and attractive young women their main prey.
The issue is one that the Transport Operators Development Sustainable Services (TODD) is aware of, and according to its president, Edgerton Newman, very concerned about.
“We are getting a lot of complaints at my office here about operators taking away bags from passengers and putting them in one bus while the passenger is in another bus; passengers being lifted up by loader men and put in a bus, and most of them are women,” said Newman.
“We are not condemning anyone, but we are saying, this is 2017, and we have to change the way we operate, and we are going to take it to them in the parks, commencing on the 24th of February when we launch our road-safety programme,” added Newman.
During a visit to a taxi hub in Half-Way Tree, St Andrew, last week, our news team saw loader men and conductors harassing women in plain view of members of the police force and personnel from the Transport Authority who did not intervene.
In one incident, a woman had to run to escape a pack of aggressive taxi men while one loader man made it his duty to tell every other female, including schoolgirls, in the most graphic terms, what he would like to do to their bodies or have them do to his.
“The Transport Authority inspectors have a job to look out for this indiscipline and bring the conductors to book. The police need to get their act together, too. You cannot see a man doing something wrong and you rather to collect than to charge,” said Newman.
He added: “It is zero tolerance with our own people as it relates to indiscipline. It should be on their records and used against them when they come to apply for or renew their badges until they take a course or attend a workshop organised by the Transport Authority.”
For Public Defender Arlene Harrison Henry, some of the boorish treatment faced by females as they seek to take public passenger vehicles amounts to assault.
“Women and girls have the right to walk about in a manner completely unmolested to make their own decision as to what bus they want to go on, and this thing of touching is completely wrong and is a violation of the female’s rights. At a minimum, it is an assault on our criminal books,” Harrison Henry told The Sunday Gleaner.
“The number of persons on our bus is something that we have to monitor because it is an opportunity for our young girls to be abused by people rubbing their bodies on them,” added Harrison Henry.
Civil activist Carol Narcisse charged that the behaviour of the conductors and loader men seen at the bus stops reflects what is happening in the wider society, where women are seen as fair game for unwelcome touching, comments, and assault, all of a highly s3xualised and violent nature.
“They (loader men and conductors) are representative of a societal acceptance or view of women and girls as essentially s3xual objects and a kind of lesser human being subject to anything anybody wants to say or do to them,” said Narcisse.
“And it is a culture, so nobody sees it as a problem except the girl or the woman. It is perfectly normal to say anything on the street to a woman in Jamaica. It is perfectly normal to touch them, rub up on them in the bus, and tell them all kinds of things you want to do to them,” added Narcisse.
Widen proposed law on s3xual harassment
Gender activist Judith Wedderburn is calling for speedy changes to the proposed law governing s3xual harassment.
Wedderburn notes that the bill regarding s3xual harassment, which was tabled in the House of Representatives in December, 2015, is limited to institutions.
a dem same men like his who act like crabit dog will abuse women because they are already doing so and it seem normal to them, them need to let them pay a hefty fine, plus attend behavior class. lawlessness.
What give these boys the idea dem can just touçh you as a complete stranger and utter every vulgarity even to a young schoolgirl in uniform. These ppl are utter germs, dats why Knutsford express to mi ting, I would never take one of those pp vehicles if I can avoid it. No professionalism bout dem, just one and few you see operate with any standard. I memba hearing someone talking about being dressed and going to work in a taxi and di taxi man pick up a fish man put right next to the person heading to work, so by the time the ride over everybody going about their business day end up smelling like fish. Simple tings like dat dem caan think through and make a wise decision on.