Tunatazama - Community Monitors

Women Experiences in Mining industries

LENTSWE BUDA

MOSES KOTANE

MOTLHABE

28 JANUARY 2021

Last year I was allowed to learn more about women experiences in the mining industry. I had to make interviews and research more about how they being treated in mining. It’s so sad how our mothers and sisters have to be discriminated against and treated as the inferior ones and objects in mining industries.

Discrimination and harassment against women in mining industries is widespread and deeply rooted and that doesn’t mean it is okay. Some believe that the government should be challenged to level up the mining industry playing fields with the South African Mining Charter to prioritise on providing more support, monitoring and enforcement than it presently does, as well as to keep our beloved sisters, mothers and daughters feeling safe and comfortable from their colleagues and their bosses or authorities.

The mine together with the government should be held accountable for any harassment or sexual violence taking place on the mine premises so the mines could enforce their employees to follow the law. So they could be more careful about the safety of women in the mining sectors. Mining companies should secure the rights of the mine hosting communities by making sure that they do benefit from the minerals extracted on their land and women should always be given a voice, they should ensure full inclusion of women in consultations, contracts and the full process that’s being done.

In other incidents, during meeting and negotiations, women’s consent would be ignored and this is due to some culture or traditions that the man is the head of the family and he has the final say as the head of the family. And failure to involve women in the consultations may lead to displacement without consideration to a woman’s role in meeting the subsistence needs of their families, and normally in rural areas, women do not participate because they always down pressured by men and that makes them less powerless because they get to lack knowledge… After all, knowledge is power. Let’s love and treat women equally to men. Not only your family but everybody so that the world could be a better place.