They manhandled me! And nobody gives a damn! How KK treats passengers with disabilities
The following events took place on Sunday 20 October 2013, between 1000 hrs and 1130 hrs. These events are a real life experience and the details given are true, however the conversations have been translated from the vernacular (Shona) to English.
At around 10 am that morning, I was in Kwekwe looking for transport to Harare opposite the last garage north of Kwekwe. I was with my sister, her husband and their one-year-old daughter, who were on their way to church.
After a few minutes of waiting a Kukura Kurerwa bus stopped right close to us. The conductor was standing at the door shouting, “Kadoma, Harare, Kadoma, Harare…” to invite customers going to both destinations.
My sister and I walked to the door of the bus, where my sister asked the conductor if there were any empty seats on the bus. He answered in the affirmative. So, my sister helped me climb onto the first step of the bus then left me to climb the other steps on my own.
“Oh, he’s travelling alone. Does he know where he is going?” asked the conductor.
“Yes,” my sister responded.
“Did you give him his bus fare,” asked the conductor. But my sister did not respond. The conductor asked the same question again and my sister did not respond a second time. When the conductor asked the question for the third time, my sister said, “He has his own money. He’s employed.” At this point, I was already on the bus and trying to find an empty seat. Luckily, I found one on the third row. The bus picked up a couple more passengers, before leaving.
A few minutes after the bus left the station, the conductor came to me and asked for his money.
“I want your personal details,” I said to him, “so that I can write a letter to your manager and tell him that this bus discriminates against people with disabilities.”
“Here are my details,” he said, waving the card that was attached to his wrist. “Pay, then I’ll give them to you.”
“You, give me your details first, then I’ll pay you,” I said as I handed him my cell phone to enter his details. He unlocked the keypad, punched in the numbers #411 and dialled them, then returned the phone to me demanding payment. “Give me your details first,” I insisted.
He left me and went to the back to collect fares from other passengers. When he was finished, he came back to me and asked if I was now ready with my money. “Give me your details first, then I’ll pay you,” I said.
“We do not carry free passengers on this bus,” he said.
“I have money to pay the fare, but I want your details first,” I said.
He left me and went to the driver, who he told that I was refusing to pay. He came back to me a few minutes later and threatened to leave me by the roadside. I told him that that would be wrong. Then he threatened to leave me at the hands of the police. I told him that that would be wrong too.
He went to the bus driver again and after a few minutes came and asked me where I was going.
“Harare,” I said.
“Harare is too far. We’ll drop you off in Kadoma,” he said and left.
The bus picked up and dropped off a couple of passengers before arriving in Kadoma. A number of passengers disembarked from the bus and more came in.
After a few minutes, the bus was almost full and ready to go. The conductor came to my seat. Two young men and an old man escorted him. The conductor spoke first. “This is as far as we can take you,” he said. “You must drop off here. You were given money so you can catch a lift from here.” I paid no attention to him.
“You have refused to pay so you must be evicted from the bus,” the old man said, showing that he was greatly annoyed by my behaviour.
The other two men spoke with me roughly. “You have not paid…. This man will lose his job if he gives you a free ride.” I ignored the utterances of all these men even though they kept insisting that I be evicted.
Even the driver shouted that I should be evicted from the bus from his seat.
Sensing the tension in the air, I told these men that I was willing to pay my dues but all I wanted was the conductor’s details.
This annoyed the men. “Let’s take him out,” one of them declared. So, one of the men put his hand around my neck and started to pull me out my seat.
The old man spoke and said once again, “You have refused to pay so you must be evicted from the bus.”
“But he [the conductor] insulted me,” I said to my defense.
I said no and tried to resist. I spread my hands and kicked in resistance. I tried to fight back. However, the second young man grabbed my hands and restrained me. The conductor grabbed my feet. The three of them carried me off the bus in this way – one with his hands wrapped around his neck, the second man restraining my hands and lifting my body, and the third man holding my legs.
“Does anyone have a camera?” I asked the few people that had gathered to watch the eviction. Nobody paid attention to what I was saying.
Once I was out of the bus, the three men lay me on the ground facing the sky. I lay down on my back in the dust. The conductor instructed his companions to leave me in a sitting position, but they did not. They left me lying in the dust.
The conductor quickly returned to the bus and the bus left me.
This was around 1130 hrs.
I made it safely back to Harare on another bus.
Following this incident, I made futile attempts to seek “justice” through several avenues, including:
(1) Reporting my complaint to the owner of Kukura Kurerwa Bus Company, Ignatious Nyarire. He referred the matter to one of his managers, who seemed to carrying out investigations but later ignored me.
(2) Reporting my complaint to the police. They proved unhelpful in ways that I narrated in an earlier post.
(3) Approaching the Disability Rights Clinic. They promised to help me write a letter of complaint, but never got about doing it.
(4) Approaching Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights. They said that they could not take up my case.
(5) Sending this article to a local newspaper for publication. They said that they needed to first get the other side of the story before they could publish it.
Now, I am publishing it on my blog. If none of those persons mentioned here thinks that the incident is serious enough to take action against, then they should have no problem with me publishing it. This is the way Kukura Kurerwa Bus Company treats passengers with disabilities. Everyone now knows it. And nobody gives a damn.
Source: www.disabilityzimbabwe.blogspot.com
