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During a visit to a tattoo artist, Nathalie, 23, was raped.
The next day, he wanted to stay home and not work at Hemköp, but his managers refused.
– It was so terrible how the managers cut me down. There are no words, says Nathalie.
Nathalie’s experience of how the store managers treated her after the rape was the first thing Handelsnytt recounted.
Nathalie, 23, would get a tattoo on her leg. But the visit to the tattoo artist ended with him locking her up and raping her.
The abuse lasted for hours. Nathalie was terrified and didn’t dare move or scream.
At the same time that the man raped her, she continued tattooing. Sometimes in the air and sometimes in the legs. He also took pictures of Nathalie.
Photo: PRIVATE
Nathalie, 23, was raped by a tattoo artist. The next day, she was forced to go to work in Hemköp.
Asked the boss to leave
The next day, Nathalie contacted her manager at the Hemköp grocery store and told him what had happened. He said he felt very bad after the incident and asked to stay home. In a text message, Nathalie wrote:
“It feels so difficult having to come to work”
He ended the sentence with a smiley face and a heart. The boss’s reaction was different than expected. The boss replied that it would be better for him to come to work and better to surround himself with people. Even that text message ends with a heart.
Nathalie then asked for a shorter work shift. But she wasn’t heard for that either.
– The boss manipulated me and made me feel very small, says Nathalie to Aftonbladet.
The conversation between Nathalie and the manager of Hemköp.
Nathalie felt guilty and went to work. When he got there, the managers shouldn’t have asked him anything about how he was feeling, but rather acted like it was any day. He was also asked if he could get additional exercise later in the week.
– It made me think that I was the one who had done wrong. And that it might not have been a rape I was involved in.
“Sms: ade mamma”
During the hours in Hemköp, Nathalie had severe anxiety, the feeling was that she was not there mentally.
– In this situation, only my managers know what happened. I didn’t tell my mother. But I text my mother after a while.
His mother understood immediately that something was seriously wrong. She took Nathalie’s job, and then it broke for her.
– I tell him and then we both start crying. We are in an empty office in the store. We cry and hug each other, says Nathalie.
The mother convinced Nathalie to go home from work. They went home to their mother and made a police report. A police patrol came directly to her home and the police took Nathalie to the hospital.
Shortly after, the tattoo artist was arrested. He was charged and sentenced to 2 years and 3 months in prison for rape and abusive photography. He was also ordered to pay 125,000 Swedish crowns in damages to Nathalie.
Alarmed management to no avail
Today, Nathalie has understood that she has been involved in abuse. Something you don’t have to feel guilty about or ashamed of.
– 70 percent suffer from “frozen fear”. You want to scream and you want to lift one leg but you are terrified. That is why I want to tell you what I have been through. So that more people understand that it is not their fault.
Nathalie and her Hemköp colleagues alerted group management that there were leadership deficiencies in their workplace.
– But nothing happened. It seems they didn’t take us seriously.
Go to a psychologist
Two years have passed since the rape. Nathalie is feeling better and has a job that she likes. But your trust in other people is damaged. He often looks over his shoulder when he is outdoors and does not dare to live as before.
– Before I used to go to fix the eyelashes. But that is something that I no longer dare to do.
Nathalie has had the help of a psychologist to process what happened. She has been very sad and has had a hard time understanding why she was unable to act during the abuse.
– My psychologist has explained to me that, just as some animals can pretend to be dead, humans can also become completely paralyzed in emergency situations. It was a survival instinct that was completely still.
“He has taken a break”
Only after Nathalie openly told the media that she was forced to work after the abuse did Hemköp’s management act.
– We have decided to designate an independent external investigation to get to the bottom of what happened. We take the experience of our employees very seriously, says press release Maricka Allensten.
He explains that Hemköp’s values are that employees should also be supported in private crises.
Nathalie executives have been fired.
– What has happened is that the store manager and the middle manager have taken a break, says Maricka Allensten.
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