The Sunday News
Sunday News visited Hope Fountain in Esigodini, Matabeleland South to get an appreciation of how women small scale miners are doing. Most of the women interviewed said they were appealing for funding to boost their operations and skills training so as to contribute to the mining sector in a big way. Some miners also complained of harassment by male competitors who at times chase them away from their mining claims.
Women miners in Hope Fountain who have been mining for 10 years said they continue to face various challenges. One miner says acquiring mining licenses from the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development is still a challenge for small scale women miners as they do not have the capital to fund the process. Most women are also struggling to raise capital to get licenses from the Environmental Management Agency.
Women are appealing for Government assistance and the Ministry of Women Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises to intervene and assist them to get funding.
They also seek the Ministry of Mines and Mining Development to review some of the fees which they say are too expensive for them.
Women claim that they continue being undermined in the male dominated industry. Also there are people who come to claim their mines on the basis that the “mine is owned by a woman”.
Occupational segregation and lack of access to capital even for the most basic tools are some of the major challenges faced by women miners.
Women miners are appealing for financial assistance from Government and other stakeholders so that they can be able to acquire machinery for their mining activities. Some of the machinery needed by the women miners include metal detectors, digging tools, crushers, concentrators, excavators, hammer mills among others.
They wish to have all the necessary mining equipment so that they do not have to hire from service providers to cut on costs. They also highlighted that instead of taking their gold ore to millers, they wish to be capacitated so that they do the milling process at their mines, thereby cutting costs as much as possible.
Women miners highlighted challenges associated with being a mother or a wife at the same time as being a business woman. “Mixing the two is a challenge,” said one of the women miners. She added that they have to sit down and plan how they can balance the two. Most of them while being miners, they also have to be farmers at their rural homesteads.
However, above all the challenges they appreciate men’s efforts and support towards their work. They note that men nowadays due to the economic situations accept women who multitask as means of survival. “Men and women now have to work together,” said the woman miner.
Women miners highlight that men now understand that they should work together with women.
“When you go out and come back with something, men appreciate your efforts,” said one woman miner. They also said that when they face challenges, men are willing to come and help.
“As you are aware that the work we are doing is male dominated but because we are also passionate about mining and as a source of survival men are understanding,” added the woman miner.
A growing number of men now value women’s efforts in taking care of family neeeds.
Mabhabhadzi/ MaShurugwi (machete gangs) have become a menace to women miners. They undermine women miners and attack and grab women owned mines. They also take away their ore, hence negatively affecting their production. Women also stated that the little machinery they might have at their mines is usually also taken away from them. This then becomes a challenge when workers need to be paid for the work they would have done at the mine.
A growing concern among women is that people who terrorise and steal from them never do time in jail as they are seen in the streets a few days after their arrests and before long they are back to their criminal ways
