Kangaa* is a woman of 33 years old, a single mother of three children all of them with different fathers. She lives in Londoni village in Singida region (in central Tanzania). Kangaa do not have a permanent job. She works as a bar maid depending on tips from customers and sometimes she works in mining sites, panning and washing sand for gold production.
It is a rainy morning, Kangaa emerges from her tiny one room mad house with grass roof. She looks at her bruised hands for a while and call her oldest daughter. She asks her daughter to start fire so that they can have breakfast. The only meal they will have the whole day, until she comes back from her "job" in the evening. Their breakfast today is boiled sweet potatoes and maize porridge; the food she managed to buy previous day using her little money she earned in her job. Her children are all out of the house and they are siting around the fireplace in a small hut they named kitchen. Kangaa takes off to the job in one of the mining site that morning, and she will be working also as a bar maid in the evening to earn some extra cash. She is working even harder now to pay for her daughter's school fees as she will be starting secondary school. Kangaa is very pleased and proud of her daughter and she is doing all she can for her education.
Kangaa migrated to Londoni ten years ago with her three years daughter. Her first marriage did not work because of the abuse from her husband. "He used to beat me and send me out naked, my in laws did not help me because i was not of the same tribe. I went to the local government authority and that is when they drove me away... they said i cannot report my husband for beating me. I left the house with nothing, but my baby and the clothes i had on..." Kangaa tells us while standing up and put her blue-red slippers.
She started living with a friend, who also had one room and a boyfriend. She worked at a mining site, washing and panning and she served enough money to rent her own room. She bought a piece of land and erected a two room mad house. "At least my house had a real roof, like that one" She says pointing her finger at the nearby house. In two years she already had a gold mining pit, a home and a small business, all of them in one place..life was good!
In 2008, they were told that their land had been allocated to the large scale miner. They were given 24 hours to move out of the area. Kangaa had nowhere to go. Within 24 hours she had lost everything! Their house was demolished and their business trashed. They took whatever they could and leave, and she had to start again from the scratch.
A good Samaritan gave Kangaa a place to build a house for her and her children. with no money or husband, Kangaa build a small hut in one day. She started living their with her baby. Who had already started grade 1.
Kangaa went back in working as a labourer in mining pits. Her baby fell sick three weeks after everything was taken away. She worked to earn money for medicine and food but it was not enough. She started borrowing money from friends but again it was not enough. Kangaa says a man approached her and offered her help. She could not resist it but she says there was a pay. She had to offer sex in return. She continued to sleep with that man in return he gave her some money. She became pregnant. "when i told him i was pregnant, he asked me what my name was...he claimed he didnt know me and i should go away, that is how i came to have my second born" Kangaa says pointing at a boy with a white like shirt and gray-black pants standing few feet away, eating sweet potatoes.
Kangaa raised her two children depending on processing gold, and as a bar maid, living in the same hut which practically did not have a door. Kangaa says that her second born was one year and two months when she got raped. She was coming back from her job and a group of men attacked him, carrying her to the nearby bush. They raped her in turns. " I laid there for hours my eyes closed while they do their business. They said if i scream they would kill me and go back in my house to rape my children. I kept quiet.. for long time.. I could not tell anyone because it was a shame, and the authority would just cal as miners, so there would be no case. Nobody would believe me, no matter what! I became pregnant again, this time i do not know the father. and that is how i came to have my third child." Kangaa says pointing at the beautiful six years girl, with no shoes on. The girl smiled at us and offer her sweet potato... How sweet!
Kangaa is still waiting for compensation for her lost land, if at all there will be any!
The story of Kangaa is a story of so many women living in the mining communities. The respect for human rights and particularly women's rights is a reality which needs to be addressed. Most women own property and particularly land by so much efforts. Taking their land with no compensation equals total improvement of women. It as a silent violence and the truth has to be told!
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