pavlos hatzopoulos on Fri, 27 Nov 2009 05:35:57 +0100 (CET) |
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<nettime> Non-citizens: A series of portraits |
Konstantina Kuneva talks about her experiences of gender violence to Lauretta Macauley http://www.re-public.gr/en/?p=1884 On December 22nd 2008, Konstantina Kouneva was attacked with vitriolic acid by two unknown men. Kuneva, was working as a cleaner for OIKOMET - one of the large private companies subcontracted by Greek public institutions to provide cleaning services. Kuneva, the first foreigner to be elected deputy secretary of the Panattic Union of Cleaners and Domestic Personnel<http://pekop.wordpress.com/>(PEKOP), became the target of continuous pressures and persecutions by the company that led to the murderous attack. In this discussion with Lauretta Macauley from the United African Women's Organization<http://www.africanwomen.gr/>, she narrates her experiences of and views on violence against foreign women in Greece. Although she has escaped mortal danger, Kuneva remains in hospital. ------------------------------ I am Kuneva Konstantina from Bulgaria. I am forty five years old. I am unmarried with a twelve year old boy. When my son was four years old, we came to Greece because he needed to have a heart operation and then I realized that we had to stay in Greece for his health checks. So I am here since 2001. As my son grows up and the problems increase. I worked in the super market Bazaar for one and a half years. I was insured from the moment I came here, I had security stamps, but their behavior towards women astonished me because it was very bad and I had the feeling that I was treated like an inferior citizen, although women offer so much to society and they are the basis of society. Because they say that the woman represents the wisdom of nature and guards the traditions. Man is only a movement and an example, keeping the woman at a very high level and accepting truly that the woman is the basis of society. And although this is well known and everyone understands it as well as the fact that the mother is important in life since she is the one who gave us life and takes care of us, the woman is ignored both in her work and in her efforts to bring up her children. They do not make life easier for women. And as we see the economic crisis in the world, most women lose their employment. But on the other hand, we also see in the villages, where men were the main workers in the farms, that agricultural work no longer produces wealth forcing people to go from the countryside to the city. And the man cannot find work in the city and the family load falls again on the shoulders of the woman. Often instead of the man finding employment in the city, he finds a girlfriend and women stay alone in a foreign place with two or three children. And they have no assistance, neither from the father in law and the mother in law nor from their father and mother. Women are forced to live with a very low wage that they offer them in order to pay for the rent, the child's books... A woman is in great need to buy the clothes and the family's food. And so there is no time to give children an education - which is something that we all owe to our children. This brings a lot of pain and a kind of violence to the woman. Because she cannot fulfill her motherly obligations towards her children. The pain is immense for the mother who must educate her children, prepare them for life. And they say that her children remain unprepared for life. Because children stay unprepared for life, without support, without the preparation that parents offer them. Besides the super market, I discovered, in stress initially, that they undervalue us as a work force. And then along with another girl from Moldova we proved to them that each one of us is worth at least five men, because men are too soft, poor things, and cannot do these jobs alone. Because men do not feel responsibility towards their family. They have learnt to be cool, to be served by us. And we have learnt to do the job of the whole team while they were downstairs in a corner smoking and drinking beer. After I left this job, following a period of unemployment, I begun working for the private cleaning company, OIKOMET as a cleaner in ISAP -public suburban train. At the beginning their behavior was very soft, and the salary was very good. And I could not believe that I was in a cleaning crew with a very bad reputation. And they were telling us that we are not a crew: "We are different. We are not like the others". Later they started giving us documents to sign, which were blank. ?nd they were threatening us to sign them. And they were telling us that we were obliged to sign them because we were working for the company. This appeared strange to all of us and then we realized that it was not as they told us an ISAP survey, in which they were asking us if we are fluent in Greek, what other languages we are fluent in, what is our educational level, what was our address and telephone number. They were making notes at the back of the paper and then they appeared as employment contracts, which had reduced our working hours. And we found ourselves in a psychological war with company. I had not revealed myself as a member of the leadership of cleaners' union. But I was forced to reveal myself and tell them at a certain moment, because they started making fun of us and abusing their right. They had intimidated us psychologically at work. They were surveying us hidden behind a column and in the open. They were threatening us. They were doing different things, whatever they could use against us. They were even pumping as on the bottom. Whatever man can imagine they had used it. They were asking women to give them a little kiss and small envelops with money. And I am talking in generally about how they behave in cleaning companies towards female employees. When I was forced to tell them that I was in the leadership of the Union, they told me that I had to switch to a different project. Since I had signed a contract and I was employed for a project in ISAP, they asked me to work in OSE (the long national train company). I refused to do so and told them that I disagree and I will continue my work in the same position and after a couple of days, after I consulted my lawyer, I will reply to them. The same day at work, the inspectors arrived accompanied by three police cars. Before their arrival, however, two men that looked like cops appeared at work, without the official budge on their shirts. They told me that they were policemen and asked me to show them my papers. They told me that I was illegal and that they will send me back to Bulgaria. I was forced to make a phone call to check if they were policemen and I asked for their papers. They disappeared immediately. When I finished the phone call, the police arrived. I went out, the police cars have blocked the whole station as if I was wanted by the INTERPOL for murder. I told them that my papers were in order and these people left. Then the police appeared again at work. They were forcing me to sign false reports. We were signing them of course with every caution. But besides the violence against the workers, there was violence also from the company personnel. They had to behave in such a way that it was violence towards us. The supervisor who was supposed to be responsible for a hundred people stayed during the whole time I was at work to survey only me. And this did not happen once. It happened many times. Poor man, outside in the cold. I was forced, since he was the one who signed not only my reports but also the reports for the project manager, to tell him that it was not right, that it is a crime, that he should not do it again. I told him that he does not understand how they use it. He answered: "Who are you to teach me how this company works?". I did not insist until the day that he showed me a report. I had more than 20 reports in a short period of time. And he gave me a report, in which my name was not even mentioned, but he had signed it. I told him that I would call the police. I called the police and they told him that what he did was a crime. I did not file a charge because the man does not know, he does not have any legal knowledge. As an unmarried woman I had made a petition to change. Because I was working from 17.30 to 23.30. My son needed me to be in the afternoon with him. To play, to help him with his homework, to check if he was prepared for school. We were discussing this for two years and they did not agree tpo change my shift. They were saying that one of my colleagues did not agree to change. But other changes, like my transfer to OSE, they did them on their own. They did not ask us, whatever they wanted they did on their own. When we were asking for something, it was impossible. Perhaps it was more convinient for them to come back at 23.30 at night? When a woman was asking for something on behalf of her child, they would not give it to her, Never Not just to me to no one. Everyday violence. He was either hiding or he was making complaints. During the last years because we were running checks in the company for illegalities, they were more cautious. Our communication was done through official papers, extra-judicial orders. They were sending me extra-judicial orders and I had to answer back with extra-judicial orders. A single one costs a hundred Euros. My salary was five hundred Euros. I am an unmarried mother and they had kicked out my mother from the company in order to force me to submit, to truckle to them. And so my mother, me and my son we were all forced to live with the five hunderd Euros they were giving us. I had to pay the rent and the extrajudicial orders from this salary. I do not know if any organization has ever received on any occasion so many extra-judicial orders as I did being employed as a simple worker. These extra-judicial orders were terrifying my family. My son and my mother, who did not understand their content, could not know exactly what they meant. Very often I discovered that they were sad. There was always terror within the family until the moment when they learnt what was happening. There was terror. There were times when I received three extra-juidicial order within the same day. The reasoning was unbelievable. And I was forced to reply with another extra-juidicial order. They were putting pressure on me to stop my activities, to find another job, or they were saying that they would make a better job offer in the same line of work. You cannot not believe that a manager is trying to buy you. Since I did not agree with that, in the end, I was attacked with vitriol in the head and face. My face and internal organs were burnt. And my health is destroyed. I have been in hospital for nine months. I am doing very well but, according to my doctors, it will take at least two more years to get well. But in general, I hurt all over because a woman must be assisted everywhere. There should be organizations and government bodies to be responsible for women's and children's rights. But what happens is exactly the opposite. They are AGAINST women and AGAINST the family and AGAINST the child. There is no help. I was very glad to hear that in Finland women are protected by an organization created by men. And this is correct because this is man's role in life: to take care of his child and his wife. Not the political parties and the invisible structures. A woman needs SUPPORT. To give her child a good education and to be able to prepare him for a good society. Woman makes society, man destroys it. # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@kein.org