Forward to the young people of Namibia, forward!
Amandla, ngawethu!
It is not easy to secure a job in Namibia
where the youth unemployment rate is at almost 50%.
In 2022 Namibia’s government paper New Era
reported that the demographic most affected by unemployment is young Black women
In January, Walvis Bay resident Fabiola Zondjembo
ended her life by drowning.
Just a few hours earlier, she had gotten fired
from her job as a cashier.
Her local community in Walvis Bay,
including her family and former colleagues, demand justice for Fabiola.
They claim abuse and mistreatment at Shoprite
— Africa’s largest retail chain — as a culprit in Fabiola’s death.
The majority of Shoprite workers are employed as casual workers,
who the company refers to as PPPs
— permanent part-timers.
Most of them are women.
Us workers go to work, but we work with fear
because you know that any simple mistake can land you behind office doors.
When you come out of that office, its like you are confused
and then you go to the till. We want to work smoothly,
and smile with customers while we are assisting them at the till,
but now I won’t be able to smile with the customer anymore
because I was made upset in the office. “Smile with the customer!”
How can I smile with the customer if I am angry, while it's not fair?
And you will be counting huge sums of money,
more than you have ever seen in your life,
but out of that money the cashier will only get weekly N$400 (U$D 27) or N$500 (U$D 35).
It's not easy. A cashier might not afford to eat that day
while counting huge sums of money.
Shoprite Holding is a multinational conglomerate
made up of over 3000 stores in Africa.
The Group’s history of worker exploitation,
is just as extensive, as its spread across the continent.
Fabiola worked at a Shoprite supermarket for two years.
Outside work, she often spent time with her sister Isabella,
who remembers her by her traditional name Unomasa,
meaning “God is powerful”.
In 2018, my mom passed away.
Unomasa (Fabiola) was studying nursing at the time.
That year she was the best learner in her class and school
and was supposed to travel abroad for further studies (in 2020).
But then Corona started and she got a job at Shoprite instead.
The family has been seeking justice and clarity for the events
that led to Fabiola’s demise.
We were at home one day when Fabiola told:
“My older sister, at Shoprite we work like slaves.
There is no rest in that place, grown women cry tears.
The managers shout at us. People cry real tears.”
Unomasa had her thing (name badge) which was written Fabiola and it was broken.
When it broke, Fabiola reported it to the manager
telling her it's not holding and requested a new one.
The woman (manager) chased her out of her office.
Fabiola put the badge in her pocket and a few days later,
the manager asked her where her badge was.
Fabiola said it's here and the manager asked why she wasn’t wearing it.
Fabiola told her that she had been in her office to report that,
which is why she keeps it in her pocket.
The manager told her that she had to go for a disciplinary hearing.
Even though a hearing was scheduled,
the managers — whose job appears to be making workers’ lives hell —
punished Fabiola until her last day.
Fabiola was our colleague. She used to work in front with us
and if you would ask her to help you with something
like "Fabiola, please fetch me a trolley for the customer,"
she would oblige without ever answering you badly.
Then we just started noticing, we don't see Fabiola in front at all anymore.
Fabiola is just kept at the back in the staff canteen.
She had to clean the canteen, clean the outside toilets etc.
Even when we clocked out, she had to stay behind.
It was like someone who was being isolated from people.
Fabiola’s situation really shocked and frightened us in this shop.
We are not free in this shop.
If we just see one of us being placed
to work in the staff canteen, we really get scared.
Unomasa would be the last to leave the store.
By the time she has to go home, it is dark, there are no taxis on the road,
no people on the streets and she had to walk roads further down
until she found a taxi.
And then came the last day.
Fabiola was called to sign her dismissal letter and clean out her space.
That day is the day that Fabiola went and completed her last deed and ended her life.
What also hurts us is our loved one really walked from where she walked
with no shoes and no clothes and into the ocean.
We want to know what were the last words that were exchanged
between the woman (manager) and my sibling, when they last encountered each other.
We also pass blame onto the big bosses in South Africa
that come to inspect the shop and see how workers are performing.
That is why we have now handed in a petition asking for the removal
of the current managers, but they do not want to remove them.
Instead they want to transfer them to other shops like Checkers etc.
but that is not our demand.
The people they would be working with there are people just like us.
Even if you have a problem at work, who will you consult
if your manager has issues with you,
not even allowing you to speak or giving you a chance.
Who will you talk to?
The Shoprite Group was founded in 1979
during the Apartheid years in South Africa.
In 2016 Forbes counted Christo Wiese,
the man who stayed at its helm for 41 years
amongst the world’s wealthiest people;
with a mass fortune of USD 5.8 billion.
We celebrated independence from what we call the Apartheid regime.
We thought as young people of this country,
the fruits of independence would be jobs.
We thought the fruits of this country would not be poverty, but prosperity.
We thought as young people of this country,
we would have access to free quality education.
33 years after independence, none of us can say
we have any of those things.
The tracks for racist labor exploitation on Namibian soil
were laid before South African Apartheid.
Before that, Namibia was a German colony.
where the Germans enforced settler colonial rule through a genocide.
The Germans placed thousands of Nama and Ovaherero
in concentration camps
and condemned them to racist and sexist slave labor,
amidst atrocious human rights violations.
It was those tracks that facilitated white South African settler rule in Namibia
which helped cement modern day injustices across racial lines.
Today, Namibia, as a direct result of colonialism and Apartheid,
trails right behind South Africa
as one of the most unequal countries in the world.
Namibia also has the fourth highest suicide rate in Africa,
a factor, significantly impacted by the country’s economic situation.
The Shoprite woman (manager) would say that
these children smell of Vaseline and they don’t wear make up.
They don’t look beautiful.
Apparently, I must make myself beautiful first before I can become a permanent employee.
But the problem is, me I don’t like make-up.
This is why they used to force me to put make-up.
But make-up is not my favorite.
Shoprite’s labor violations are not restricted to Walvis Bay.
Over the years, workers across the country have resisted them.
Also scoring significant victories,
with the assistance of the Nixon Marcus public law firm.
In Windhoek, we caught up with Elsie Ashipala,
a labor activist who has supported the worker’s struggle in the capital.
So, I don’t really see that Shoprite has really changed.
In today’s world they are just using the term “independent”
but then they are still being colonized.
But this time actually it’s not only the whites.
The whites are colonizing us indirectly;
using our own people to colonize us.
Hage Geingob [President of Namibia] comes to parliament and tells us
he is going to send 2800 unemployed young people
to the correctional sector so that they can be employed as security officials,
so that they can be employed as police officers.
What about those that studied to be lawyers?
What about those that have studied to be educators in this country?
What about those?
What about those who studied to be nurses in this country?
What about those young people?
On Tuesday we are celebrating Namibia’s independence day.
I am asking for whom was this land freed?
Was the land freed for us while we are crying?
While we have not received a solution/help,
yet we are celebrating that the land of our mothers is free.
Fabiola left behind her brothers and sisters in Shoprite.
This freedom has not yet reached her brothers and sisters
while they are being taken to hearings,
while others are being fired.
How do we work with this situation? How do we get help
so that these things end for those who are still in Shoprite? How will we be helped?
A peaceful youth protest against unemployment
that was scheduled for Namibia’s 33rd independence
was shut down by the police who also jailed the organizers.
You have to disperse.
Should you not disperse, we as the law enforcement agents,
we are going to take necessary steps to make sure
that this demonstration does not go ahead.
Yes, so having said that, yes, we will only give you 5 minutes.
Yet, at Walvis Bay Shoprite, it has, been business as usual
since Fabiola’s death and the demonstration that followed.
We accompanied Isabella to Shoprite to get some answers,
but the branch manager who had Fabiola fired,
threatened to call the police on us before shop security arrived to escort us out.
When we go to the woman to ask her something,
she runs without giving feedback, wanting to call the police instead.
When are we going to talk? When will we know what she spoke about with Fabiola?
What we want to know as a family is until when?
Shoprite said they would need two weeks to make a decision
about what to do with that manager.
Until now, we have not received any feedback.
The police said they sent an inspector to investigate what happened
and who will get back to us.
We have not received any feedback. So, we are asking until when? Our family is hurting.