‘Gender inequality, health and safety of women in small-scale mining’ 18 February 2020

Narrating her life as a female miner, Ms Joyce Mpofu (54), a single mother from Bubi District of Matabeleland North province, shared incidents that threaten her health and safety daily as a woman in the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector. These vary from intimidation, discrimination, name calling, sexualised talk, display of body parts and the exchange of sexual favours for promotion. According to Ms Mpofu, a former vegetable vendor, working in the ASM as a woman is challenging.

…“Men always make explicit remarks or refuse to accept the authority or capabilities of women. I have seen it, experienced it first-hand and heard many more horrible and serious stories than what has happened to me,” she says with a distant look. Her facial expressions were explanation enough as she insisted that the ASM sector in the country remains perilous and notoriously inhospitable to women.

… Her experiences are also a living testimony that women in mining, particularly in the gold mining sector, are experiencing a number of challenges such as victimisation by male miners, dispossession of their claims, and various other forms of gender-based violence, resulting in many women fearing to venture into mining.