Vishalin P

Abusive to customer

Dear Friends and Family, it saddens me to report that, on Saturday, 15/08/20 , I became a victim of Woman Abuse, I decided to write about this on social media to spread the word and to disgrace perpetrators such as these. On the morning of 15 August 2020 I went to Epsom Seafood on Crescent Street, Durban, where I usually get my seafood. I arrived around 9am and I was the only customer in the shop. I chose a large fish and asked for the assistant to fillet the fish for me. When I was handed the filleted fish in two trays, I realised that I should have had it cut into portions. The owner/ manager was next to me, so I asked him if I could have the fish cut into portions. He said that this will cost more which I found strange, as I was just asking for the fish to be cut into smaller pieces. I then asked why it would cost more and he was immediately rude and aggressive and replied that cutting the fish into smaller pieces would involve more cost as there’s more plastic and packaging involved. I found this bizarre considering the amount of seafood I was buying, and have over many years bought from this store. I then said that this reasoning would lead to a loss of customers. This response from me, a 64 year old woman by herself in the store, led to an unimaginable outburst from the individual. He immediately grabbed my trolley and pushed it away with such force that had I still been holding onto it would have certainly resulted in a very nasty fall. He then followed this aggression with a tirade of profanities the likes of which I have never ever been called in my life and which disgust me to even write. He flew into a blind rage as I looked on in absolutely stunned silence. I was paralyzed with fear and indeed feared for my safety. I was then surrounded by about 4 men and his security guard, who put his hand on my shoulder to escort me out of the store. I had to ask him to unhand me as I was leaving. As I was leaving the store, doing my best not to burst into tears, the individual followed me almost to my car continuing his assault and began taking pictures of my car. If merely asking for the fish to be cut has thrown this individual into such animalistic and demonic rage I absolutely fear what this individual is capable of now that he has taken pictures of my car. I have never in my life been subjected to such verbal abuse and assault which was totally unwarranted (not that there ever is a reason for such contempt vulgarity). My human rights have been infringed upon by the abuse that I suffered. It was denigrating on the base of my gender. The abuser is male and he used the fact that I am a woman to hurl gender-specific abuse at me, which is even more abhorrent considering its women's month. I had tried reporting this over the phone to the police as I am concerned about going into public places given the prevalence of Covid-19, however the police were of no help in assisting me to report this as an act of assault (given the fact that numerous threats made and pictures of me and my car taken). This kind of behaviour towards women has to STOP.