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Photo:Vipin Chandran

No nonsense attitude Leela Joy, a woman security guard on the job at a facility in Kakkanad

She belongs to that rare breed of women security guards, one which we do not get to see very often.

Sujata, 27, is another security guard. She has none of the hardness that one would associate with such a job. She is respectful to the point of being diffident. But see her at her workstation and the transformation is nothing short of metamorphosis. “I used to be extremely shy and quiet. Now I am bolder since I have had this kind of exposure,” she says. This pre-degree dropout secretly nursed ambitions of becoming a cop, but since she did not apply at the right time that will remain an unfulfilled dream.

A top official of a leading security agency in the city says, “These ‘lady guards’ are stricter and sterner than their male colleagues. Neither are they lax nor do they brook any nonsense. ” The firm has around 20 lady security guards. The minimum age for recruitment is around 20 years-old and the retirement age is 58 years.

Kochi is home to several security agencies such as G4S Security Services, Raven Beck, Rakshak, Red Eagle, Checkmate, Royal etc and some of these provide women security guards. The highlight is that there is parity of salary. And they do not have to work on night shifts either, which makes the job even more attractive. Companies and corporates which have women in the workforce require women security guards. For instance where there is packing and packaging like at godowns or IT firms, there is a substantial woman workforce.

For most of the women this job is not the fruition of a lifelong ambition, it is the result of compulsions – domestic and therefore inevitably financial. Jamuna, 44, a head guard, has been a guard for the last eight-and-a-half years and is candid. “I wanted to lead a life of dignity. I got married and whatever notions I had of happiness disappeared. First went the jewellery and the last and most important thing to go was self respect.” A matriculate, she says, “One day I just got out hunting for a job, I was determined to find one and that’s when I heard of the vacancy at G4S. I applied and got selected. I went ahead despite the opposition, after all this was my chance to live with dignity.”

For Sreeja, 30, it was a career with the CRPF which did not materialise as her application was rejected because she was over age. A graduate and a PGDCA to boot, she is content with her job. Stop before you begin imagining gun-toting women going about their business. These women are dressed in salwar-kurtas with dupattas pinned demurely in place and there are no guns or batons. So isn’t that gender discrimination? “Not really, because we are not in a situation where we would need to use violence to prevail upon a situation.”

And that is comfort for the family “I told them that it paid well, the working conditions were better, the timings too. My family had no problems,” says Sreeja, as also Sujata. Both these women got married subsequent to their joining the security agency. Sreeja’s husband who has a business in Kannur just wondered “Are there such people as women security guards?” Jamuna says her sons are happy with what she does, “They know that their needs are being fulfilled because Mummy is doing what she is. ” Talking of problems that they have encountered during the course of their work they say, “Every job comes with its set of problems and difficulties and don’t women cope with them?” But Jamuna sums it up succinctly, “Ten men cannot do what one woman can do, then what is the problem?”

Parity of pay for men and women guards

No night duty

Uniform is salwar kameez, no guns

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