The three depressing stereotypes women in mining face!

Women in Mining communities face gender stereotypes, the packaging comes in different forms, whether as a joke, serious statements, practices towards them and so on. It does not matter how it is packaged, but stereotype is a stereotype, a worse form of gender based violence, acknowledged and accepted by communities. Here are the three very depressing and annoying kind of stereotypes that whether known as violence against women and violation of their basic human rights, they are degrading and dehumanize women work and living in mining areas in a way that not everybody can see how it affect them now.

1. You are a Woman, you can not Work Underground!

Yes, mining is a tough job! It requires muscles and strength. And yes, working underground can be dangerous and intimidating. But lets get the facts straight here! What makes the job done!... The hands! And what is the difference between men and Women..., the biological make ups, women having the women parts and men having the men parts, and their biological functions. It does not require the men parts to do mining and women parts not... which i mean to say, biological make up of women or men do not have anything whatsoever with activities they do, apart from the biological functions of their bodies - Reproduction.

Women should be left to decide what part of the mining activities they would like to undertake. Whether going underground, or doing administrative jobs or providing services, should be entirely free of their choices and will. This kind of statement is a patriarchal lie, created to scare women off the mining chain and benefit few.

2. Women Should Never go near Gold Mining Pits while on their Menstruation Period, because Gold Will Disappear.

What? Seriously? How in hell Women menstruation get in Gold geomorphology?  It raises not only eye brows but the whole face! A lot of questions on this as this patriarchal lie is designed to exclude women from understanding the quantity and value of the minerals mined from the land. This statement/belief is designed to deepen the patriarchal lies that women should be ashamed of their bodies and their state of healthy monthly period is a bad luck. 

Miners can be superstitious, using vodoo and Juju in their activities as they lack geological information and support from state to undertake professional mining. As a result, women bear the burden of try and error in ASM communities.

3. Women living and Working in Mining areas are Prostitutes.

The involvement of women in mining is mostly driven by poverty and mining is seem as a means of survival. In most cases, women in these areas are single and independent mothers, who came to mining areas as a result of either bad divorce, separation, early marriages or abandonment by their partners although, some of them are there as a matter of choice and mining is a means of economic activity which puts food on the table and children to school and roof over their head.. The first are the result of  patriarchy system which devalue women on the basis of what they do.

I knowledge that there are sex commercial workers in the mining communities. But before pointing fingers, lets see the reason why they are there( Forget about the simple answers like, its their attitude, they are greed etc). Think about the system, the families they are coming from, economic set up on this country, exclusion from economic opportunities, etc. 

You should also know that and sometime, sex work  comes as a form of resistance to injustices.

Share any other kind of stereotypes you know

A letter to my president -3: Our Livelihood Depend on land

Dear Mr President!

I hope this letter finds you well, and you probably read the first two. Today, i want to remind you that we depend on  land for our livelihoods.

My president, we woman from mining areas, like any other area in Tanzania,  depend on  land for our livelihoods. We depend on the land for food, firewood, medicine, grazing the animals, water, and many other uses. We also produce and sell the extras and  exchange for other important needs. For example last year i sold six bags of maize and pay school fees for my daughter who is in secondary school. I also paid medical expenses for my other son who was ill. I know other women will support me on how important our land is.

Mr President, your mining plans are taking away our land. There are tens of land deals in Tanzania which we as land owners are not aware of. These land deals are entered without our knowledge and participation. They normally come to us a surprise and in a matter of an eye blink, we loose our homes, our sources of food, water, services and our dignity.  I have lived long enough to see and understand the pattern. Tanzania was one of the  countries in the world where even the poorest could own land. When i say the poor, i do not mean the shallow meaning provided by neo-liberal ideology that poor people are the ones  living under one US dollar per day!

Mr President, the compensation provided for the land taken in most cases are not enough, the valuation processes is cumbersome and does not take into account gender needs - Women participation. Women face double challenge in these processes and your people seem to turn the deaf ear on this. 

Mr President, If you happen to want our land for your mining plans, first of all we want your people to consult us first before signing the deals. We know the law gives our village council some power on this. We do not want the raid and take as your people normally do. Please tell  them we want to fully participate in the process. Secondly, we want women participation in the process. The valuation and compensation process MUST  involve women whether single or married. (In most cases they contact only men and after compensation which is mostly in cash, men run away with the whole money). Third, we want a share of the income from the mining which take place on our land. Remember  this is the land   have used for very long time. Fourth, we want jobs from the mining projects. before its starts, make sure that you work to develop the capacities and skills of women and men from the same community to be able to participate in jobs provided by the mining projects. Fifth, if you cannot comply with the above suggestions, leave our minerals in the soil. We do not eat them after all!

The Women Voice is an Earth Voice!

"The devastating environmental and social impacts (of destructive extractivism) will continue unchecked and exacerbated by the high levels of energy and water consumption (and pollution) that accompany the processing and value addition to raw materials. These costs are mainly borne by peasant women in the region who have the development solutions we must recognise and build on," 
 
Samantha Hargreaves:   SADC People's Summit
2014- Bulawayo

visit:  www.womin.org.za for more information on women struggles on extractive industry
 

A letter to My President - (2) -We want a space on the table

Dear Mr President, we want a space on the table!

Mr President, My name is Zoila, i wrote you a letter few days ago. I do not know if you have received it, but i will keep on writing. This time, i want to tell you that We women from mining communities want a space on the table. We want to be part of the decision making processes particularly in the ministry of energy and minerals. Most decisions are made without women involvement and it results into bad policies and practices. And when i say  women involvement, i do not mean women from urban areas who do not understand our situation clearly, i do mean women who come from mining communities, who understand  our situation and priorities and who  represent the reality, not the assumptions. These women can only be found from areas such as Kalalani, Mirerani, Namtumbo, Londoni, Sambaru, etc etc..


Mr president, please do not misunderstand or misconstrue the meaning of Involvement or engagement. I mean we want to participate from the beginning to the end. From deciding when, where, who and how the mining projects should take place on our ancestral land, to be part of the activities, and benefit from the land we cultivate. We want to be part in deciding how the benefit from our mining resources should benefit women and we want to be part in deciding who we will work with. Tell your people that we do not want that "consultations" they call community involvement. Tell them we want women to be thoroughly involved and they choose who they would want to represent their issues and priorities on the table.


Mr President, we may not know how to read and write, but we know what we want and how we can get them. First, we want fairness, and this starts by involving women, working with women, facilitating women, understanding women's power and so on. We are not powerless, but we choose to be quite and use our power wisely. And this time we want to prove this by having a space on the table, because we want to contribute to this countries' development.

A letter to my president - Part 1

Dear Mr President,

My name is Zoila and i am a woman from mining community in Tanzania. I have tried so many times to reach you but in vain. Your security guards and ministers and secretaries have been so hard on me, they say you are busy and you do not have time to meet me. This is my hundredth letter to you and i hope you will read it and respond.

My  President, i want you to know that i voted for you  both in the first term and second term. You promised that you would give more opportunity to women... i have been waiting and waiting and waiting, i am now becoming impatient. I heard that you appointed women in various political positions, but how does this reflect on my empowerment as  a common  woman from the interior of interior, in mining community where social services, such as water hospital, school, sanitation, road,  electricity etc etc is limited.

Mr President, I want you to know that where i live, there is no respect for women. Women are being abused, raped, and mistreated by virtue of being women and most importantly be being  Women in Mining. We are being abused by both people and system, it was  last week when my niece was raped by six men and when reported to the village authority, they said that she is a women miner and she consented. She could not go to the police station as the facility is located 60 kilometers from my village. Also, the dispensary here could not treat her because they do not have doctors and drugs. Please tell your people that we want them to build us a police station with functioning gender desk. We have paid our fair share of taxes and levies and revenues and contributions. We want result. I mean we are calling for  Big result Now! Tell them that their budgets should never overlook our need for getting pregnant and having children just because they cannot build us a decent hospital with trained health personnel. Also, tell them that we want a police post on every mining community. The extent of crimes against women is very high here.

Mr President, i have been waking up at 2 am everyday to scramble for water, This is not fair. My community is a source of precious gold and other agricultural products. I do not understand why we have only one source of water for a community of more than 10,000 people. I want you to tell your people that we want water, we women are the ones who bear the brunt of poor planning and implementation of poor polices made by your government. Tell your people to that we want water, clean water for us and our families.

This is my son who went to fetch water since 2 AM  this morning and he is coming back at 5 PM

We Are Not ANGRY Enough!

I am a woman, and i am a feminist! i work with women  from mining communities in Tanzania and i am angry. In the past few days i have been assessing myself if i am angry enough to effect change, i do not have a clear answer yet... i am still reflecting.

I have been talking with women i work with about different issues in mining sector in Tanzania, and my observation is... Women are not angry enough.  Most of them would say "The state is very powerful and we cannot change, or the mining companies have BIG money and any other loads of excuses, but if we were angry, very angry, and very constructively angry, we would look forwad and continue with questioning  the POWER.

The power that give the same mining corporations our resources and remain silent when they abuse us.  The power that use our money, our bodies, our resources, our children, our families and manipulate our economy for their own benefit.

We are POLITELY angry, and being politely angry will not bring the change we want.We need to re- direct our anger towards the system. for the cause we have been believing in. JUSTICE and EQUALITY. We have done our fair share of protecting our land, and natural resources, and environment, and our bodies, and our economy and so many more you can name the rest,  but we need to do more, go further than looking at our being women or men but shaming those who stand on our way!

Lets be angry enough to change what is not right!

The struggle for a post-extractivist alternative is a global struggle - Samantha

"Extractivism - a development model which underlies most economies of the Global South and shapes our societies - is deeply destructive, it rampages through communities, through forests and waterways, destroying the very basis for the reproduction of human beings. It ‘undermines’ the water we drink, the lands we live on and eat from, the forests we harvest from, and the air we breathe."

"… because of the centrality of extractivism to the food, energy, social and planetary crisis this is where we must start to make our challenges, and propose and build our alternatives.”

Read More about this at http://www.actionaid.org/nl/nederland/2014/05/women-mining-interview-samantha-hargreaves

Lets Send a Message Our there

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Defending Our Land: Defending Our Livelihood!

This green land is in Sambaru and Londoni villages in Singida region. It is a home of a nomadic  tribe called Mang'ati. They are  depending on land for grazing their animals and farming. Young girls and boys are responsible for grazing animals and they are depending on this land. Women collect firewood from this land for domestic use. Maize, millet, sweet potatoes, beans, green vegetables, onions and rice grow on this land once sometimes twice a year. But underneath it, there is an enormous deposit of gold.

This land is now owned by Shanta Mining Company. Production have not started yet. The company is putting up structures and fencing the land. There are areas within the land where people are not allowed to access. It is guarded by state police paid by both the state and mining company.

There is no much hope among communities of benefiting from this project. They already know that they will not be employed by the company or provide services and goods to the company. Women are much more devastated. They will loose their source of  food, energy and water. The current fresh air  will be polluted by dust and their children and their families will be sick. HIV prevalence will increase due to the immigration and their families may disrupt.

In this community, men own cattle. They will loose the land for grazing and their economy will be shaken. They are still wondering how they are going to provide for their families once their land is gone. This areas will turn into desert in a couple of years, taking away  livelihood of more than 10,000 people.