Job-seeker told 'employment conditions' include sex

15 March 2019 - 11:17
By Iavan Pijoos
Office workers. File photo.
Image: Thinkstock Office workers. File photo.

"There are no jobs these days, so if you a woman you have to compromise somehow to get a good lifetime job offer."

This is the message a desperate job-seeker received from an alleged sex pest at the weekend. 

The 23-year-old woman, from Uitenhage in the Eastern Cape, said she was contacted with a job offer on Sunday.

Part of the WhatsApp conversation between a potential
Image: Supplied Part of the WhatsApp conversation between a potential "employer" and job-seeker who was asked to provide sexual favours.

This was after she posted her cellphone number and qualifications on Gumtree, along with her photograph. 

She was urged to do so by Sisanda Mabona-Mlisana, who created a job-seekers page on Facebook.

The potential employer claimed his name was "Riaan Smith" and that he was from a property management company, which he named.

"On WhatsApp he asked me how I am doing and if I was still looking for employment. I told him I was," she said.

The man asked for her age and address. He then offered her a "hot position" as a property manager at a company in Port Elizabeth.

She was informed that she would only be hired after agreeing to certain "employment conditions".

"I asked him what these employment conditions are."

The man offered a package including a monthly salary of R11,000, double pay on her birthday, a laptop, a contract cellphone and groceries, in exchange for sexual favours.

"He told me that we would use condoms and that we would skip a month and only have sex again in April. I decided that this was a scam and blocked the number."

She posted the conversation on Facebook to alert other women.

"I wanted to cry that day, because I have been applying and applying everywhere. It has been a year now that I haven't been working."

This was the second time she had been harassed. "Just because we are desperate, people out there think that they can claim us. I am so unlucky and it makes me furious.

"I shall continue applying even if there are rubbishes out there taking advantage of us. God will make a plan for me," she said.

The property company named by the man said it was based in Cape Town and had no association with the man.

"We are busy resolving the matter," the company said.

Mabona-Mlisana said she had been running a job-seekers initiative for more than a year.

"I help people write CVs and I even help people prepare for interview questions."

She said she was disappointed and shocked by the ordeal.

"It strips my self-confidence as an unemployed woman. I always ponder if I can ever be sufficient with just only my intellectual capability and not be seen as a sex object.

"We are not safe as women in this country full of vultures."

She has called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to grant her two minutes of his time.

When our sister publication TimesLIVE attempted to contact the number of the alleged sex pest, it went straight to voicemail.

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