Tales of waitresses being sexually harassed by women in Nakuru night clubs
A waitress fills up a beer glass in a bar.
Betty Wanjehi* is a waitress in one of the night clubs in Nakuru city.
She is also a student in one of the universities. Hence, her night job is just a way for her to make some extra money.
However, during the two years she has been in this industry, Betty admits that she has seen her fair share of sexual harassment , in her pursuit to earn an honest living.
"In my line of work you get to meet very different kinds of people. There are those who are well mannered, those who are self-centred and see you as their slaves and those who are just rude," she narrates.
Therefore, to survive in this job, Betty says one must have a very thick skin.
"As the night progresses and people become intoxicated, they start behaving differently. The men often start making moves towards waitresses. We ignore them most of the time, but when they cross the line, we call the bouncers who whisk them away."
In an interesting twist, Betty says there are times even the women at the night club attempt to grope her, something she finds quite amusing.
"When attending to female clients, one would have their guard down since you are of the same gender. But of late, there has been this trend where you find women are the ones who sexually assault waitresses," she says.
She goes ahead to narrate to me about a time she was serving drinks to a table that had women and two of them started touching her backside, saying profane things to her.
"I was very uncomfortable and did not know how to exactly react to this situation. I also felt it would be weird if I went and told the bouncer that women were sexually abusing me, so I just switched tables with one of my colleagues who was male," Betty recalls.
She adds that indeed this has become a trend where waitresses get sexually assaulted by fellow women in night clubs.
Another waitress Alice Makena who works in a different night club confirms this, saying that even though she has never experienced it herself because she is new in the industry, she has heard confessions of her colleagues.
"This is my sixth month on the job but the stories my colleagues share with me are harrowing and they make me become more careful around women than men," Makena notes.
She says that women in these cases would go above and beyond to get the attention of the waitresses.
"There was a colleague of mine whom we started out with. One day she was approached by a group of women who were willing to pay her, so that they could go home with her at the end of her shift. This made my friend so uncomfortable, that she quit her job," Makena reveals.
She pleads with women to respect waitresses and understand that regardless of being the same gender, making advances towards them is indeed sexual harassment.