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Women at the Pacific Women and Mining meeting discuss the importance of increasing women's participation in community decision making. Photo Shanta Martin / OxfamAUS
The private sector, including the mining sector, has an increasingly critical influence over human development. As such, mining companies have an ever-more important role in areas affecting gender equality and the rights of women.
Women are often excluded from the economic benefits of mining and bear the burden of many of the negative environmental and social impacts, yet there has been little discussion about women's roles and rights in relation to the activities of the mining industry. Our work seeks to highlight the different ways that women and men are affected by mining and how these differences may be addressed.
To this end The Mining Ombudsman has sponsored and organised several workshops and conferences around the world to give women affected by mining an opportunity to discuss their concerns and share ideas and solutions.
The grievances voiced by women reveal that mining has specific gender impacts, particularly with respect to gender relations and women's empowerment. These include:
- The failure to consult with women when negotiating access to land and when negotiating compensation and royalties disempowers women, and may go against traditional decision-making structures, particularly in matrilineal societies
- The payment of compensation and royalties to men "on behalf of" families and communities which denies women access to and control over the financial benefits of mining. This encourages women's economic dependence on men, disempowering them and skewing gender relations
- The effects of environmental damage, loss of land and displacement which undermine women's capacity to provide food and clean water for their families, and subsequently lead to an increase in their workload. Women are forced to become economically dependent on men, and the income derived from "formal" employment
- Displacement and a shift from a traditional subsistence economy to a cash-based economy which may lead to the loss of traditional values and way of life. This can result in the diminishing of women's traditional status in society
- The withdrawal of male labour from traditional subsistence activities as men gain employment with mining companies. This results in an increased work burden for women, who become solely responsible for subsistence activities and providing for families
- A greater prevalence of social and health problems due to the decline of traditional mechanisms of social control, an influx of a transient male workforce and lack of formal employment opportunities for women. These problems include increased alcohol consumption, domestic violence, STDs and HIV/AIDS, and prostitution
- Women mine workers often face discrimination, limited choices with respect to job opportunities, poor working conditions, low wages and unequal pay for equal work.
These breaches of women's human rights are caused by gender-insensitive projects and exacerbated by insufficient or non-existent gender analysis and planning. The gender impacts of mining operations cannot be addressed without a specific gender analysis and gender impact assessment of projects.
Find out more
- Tunnel vision report (489KB PDF)
- Statement of the Pacific Regional International Women and Mining Network Meeting (30KB PDF)