By Lucy Tandi – Monday 14 June 2021
ANALYSIS – HARARE (Mining Index) – GENDER disparity in the mining sector is a legacy issue that has evolved for decades, continue today, potentially leading to an increase in women’s economic vulnerability.
Challenges faced by women in extractives are neither unique nor new to the regional context, rather, they are historical, patriarchal in nature and systematically engrained in the very fiber of socio-economic interactions.
Today, women continue to make up the majority of the world’s poor, and 50 percent of the poor in SADC region.
The extractive industry remains a male dominated industry.
The systematic and deliberate marginalization of women for the economic and social beneficiation of mining companies traces back to traditional laws that prohibited women from access to mine shafts.
During the colonial era, women were legally prohibited from mining, and this tradition has continued in some sections of the Zimbabwean society.
Today, among the ASM sector, superstition remains rife, with women still prohibited from undertaking various mining duties.
Traditional beliefs in communities such as Shamwa in Mashonaland Central, Silobela in Kwekwe and Lalapanzi in Gweru are still being experienced, viewed as barriers to women emancipation in small scale mining.
The role of women in the mining sector has been romanticized into supportive and auxiliary roles.
Due to cultural and organizational exclusion, women in ASM scarcely undertook underground mining activity.
However, some artisanal and small-scale female miners are defying these myths and are now entering mine shafts and employing other women miners to conduct duties that had previously been viewed as male jobs.
Interestingly, Zimbaqua mine located in Karoi, Zimbabwe has defied all odds and is known to employ only women at the mine, shifting gears in the division of labour.
The culmination of social, cultural, and legal barriers has resulted in the ousting of women in the mining sector to playing primarily support roles.
Despite significant involvement and contribution of women to the ASM industry, statistics above are far from the number of females entrusted with leadership positions.
The current division of labour and cultural norms lower the status and authority of women relative to men in Zimbabwe’s mining sector.
Sadly, the ministry of Mines and Mining Development itself does not have female representation in its top three. The minister Winston Chitando, his deputy Polite Kambamura and the Permanent Secretary Onesmo Moyo are all male.
The recently elected top three executives of the Chamber of Mines (CoMZ) failed to appoint women executives, albeit its outgoing president Elizabeth Nerwande having been female.
The participation of women, albeit being mostly illegal and largely undervalued remains concentrated in the artisanal sector meant to fulfil bread and butter issues.
Due to the traditional roles ascribed to women, relegating women and girls to the household has led to the exclusion of women from obtaining the necessary educational attainments required for formal mining activities. This pushes women to enter the informal sector.
Women, must thus lobby that the Mines and Minerals Bill include sections on affirmative action for women to actively and productively participate in the mineral resource sector.
Women miners have for some time expressed concern over traditional myths in some Zimbabwean communities that prohibit women from taking part in any form of mining during their menstrual cycle, arguing that transgressing this results in the disappearance of gold.
Women view these myths as a deliberate move to constrain their participation in mining.
Traditional culture believes that should women go underground, it is bad luck, even more so when they are menstruating.
These gender-norms have been normalized to the extent that the sector, in its entirety from tools to protective wear is not designed to be unisex, rather designed specifically for men.
Closer home in Zambia, cultural beliefs in some sections of society still condemn women to engage in small scale mining.
Similarly, In Papua New Guinea traditional indigenous beliefs and cultural practices remain an obstacle to small-scale women miners. ENDS// www.miningindex.co.zw
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