A recent report by the Women Rise Project team has reported that of the 40,000 women employed in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM), a significant portion of them are adolescents and young women.
However, ASM poses significant environmental, social, economic and occupational health impacts that affect their health and wellbeing. As ASHLEY AINE writes, many of these women are susceptible to cancer and infertility due to long exposure to mercury.
However, there is hope after the intervention of experts to provide them with business and vocational skills as well as creating awareness about adolescent sexual and reproductive health.
Recently, a Women Rise Project team study, funded by the International Development Research Centre from Canada, reported that the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector in Uganda employs 40,000 women, with a significant portion of these being adolescents and young women.
However, ASM poses significant environmental, social, economic and occupational health impacts that affect human health and wellbeing. These include environmental degradation; defacing of the landscape; soil, water and air pollution; cancer from long exposure to mercury; and infertility in both men and women.
Pushed by extreme poverty and social vulnerabilities, young women and adolescents dominate gold ore processing in ASM in Uganda and thus bear the brunt of associated environmental, social, economic, and occupational health impacts.
Nearly all (97%) of adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) engage in gold ore processing using mercury without personal protective gear, exposing them and sometimes their children to health hazards involved.
Some 28% of reported mercury-related effects included fatigue and stress, headaches, muscle, chest and joint pain, numbness, liver problems, tremors, skin rashes, pulmonary tuberculosis and delivery of children with birth defects.
“Some of the women who work in the mines have given birth to babies that appear mentally retarded. They do not respond well, like normal babies, when engaged. They behave like they are in another world,” a young woman in Mubende, notes.
The findings revealed that Kassanda district has the highest number of tuberculosis cases in Central Uganda, with over 80% of the tuberculosis patients at the regional referral hospitals from Kassanda having worked in goldmine pits.
The report gives witness accounts of miners showing side effects of exposure to mercury and terming it as witchcraft. Some of the miners were said to abstain from bathing, as they believed it would make the gold vein dry out. The Covid-19 pandemic also saw a rise in the health implications on the young women and men in this sector and is yet to stabilise.
The young women and adolescents, 15 to 18, continue to engage in sexual activities for opportunities to work in exchange for cash or gold ore. Some 28% of those who have had sex this way had multiple partners in the last year.
With a high prevalence of drug use, 40% of these youth self-reported having contracted STIs.
“Some girls resorted to prostitution. Even a girl who could never allow you to get close to her before the lockdown would ask you to go with her in exchange for a “kikomando’. That is how cheap girls were,” reads part of the report.
A speaker at the event from one of the districts noted that when there is a gold rush in Kassanda, they see many of the Kampala prostitutes flocking to the gold mine areas and bars.
The environment itself is a breeding hub contributing greatly to the risk of multiple partners, with most of its population being divorced young women earning the bare minimum and working directly in the mine, which is the biggest source of money for them.
According to the research team, the mining areas are often constituted by ethnic diversity, with foreigners taking 10% and 45% are migrants, 64% are primary school dropouts or had no formal education, 30% are orphans and 41% are below 20 years.
Many of the AGYW in ASM were desperate and facing extreme poverty that increased the risk of social, sexual and reproductive health challenges, not forgetting the various incidences of sexual violence that go unreported.
“Girls suffered more… In the process of looking for survival, they have ended up being defiled, being married off when they are young ….” Another participant’s name was withheld. Several adolescent girls got married because they did not have enough to eat.
Some of the girls were trafficked into the mines; they thought they were being employed to do housework chores only to reach the mines and be assigned to either work in the mine or be pimped out to rich customers.
Some men ask the bar attendants to call them once the young prostitutes come in, and they offer them Shs 20,000 for the information. This was a statement made by another speaker from the districts asking the organisation to help raise awareness amongst these girls.
ASM social settings are male-dominated, with low levels of gender awareness and basic SRH, economic, and human rights. The report from the team noted that decision-making concerning SRH favours men, and this is associated with gender norms that promote male dominance in the economic sphere and sexual relations in a mining work environment.
Payments, property ownership (land), and decision-making concerning whether to work and sometimes the type of work are dominated or favoured by men. Young women and adolescents work under precarious conditions that include being trafficked, sexual harassment, being forced into transactional sex in exchange for work for cash or gold ore or outright sex work, especially for those working in bars.
The strict gender division of labour in ASM and taboos developed around mining activities restrict women’s effective participation in mining.
“There are superstitions about women going down the pit. This is done for their safety, as there is a risk of accidents and sexual abuse involved. However, the workers’ inability to see what happens in the pit leads to exploitation and underpayment. Usually, female investors fall victim to exploitation.
Another account reported that the women that manage to invest in a shaft have to stay throughout the night to protect it, as they cannot trust any other person not to rob them, which is totally unsafe for them. The study also uncovered that the individuals in ASM communities have low financial literacy. Only 26% belonged to a savings or investment group, with the majority of the males being reckless spenders, and they often neglected their families.
“Male ASMs behave like fishermen; they live from hand to mouth. When they get substantial money, they disappear from their homes until all the money is spent.”
A resident hails from the eastern region. After this study, the association intervened by training peer mentors in business skills, establishing village saving and loan associations, vocational skilling in hair dressing, catering, and tailoring, adolescent sexual and reproductive health awareness campaigns, gender empowerment training, mobile clinics, among many others.
With this intervention, the study recorded that the trained young women were able to reach out to their peers, and the group members (AGYW) increased from 15 to 50. About 70% saved and started income- generating activities.
“I got pregnant when I was at school, and I was really ashamed because I’m still so young. But I was counselled when I joined this organisation and I gave birth to my child; since then I have saved and reared pigs, and I went back to school,” noted one of the girls.
Many other ladies who had participated in this project gave their testimonies on how it has helped not only them but all the other girls who see them thrive in their new skins.
The study by Prof Betty Kwagala, Dr Miriam Mutabazi, Dr Stephen Wandera and Kawooya Shafiq (Project Coordinator) and other supporters asked the policymakers present to intervene in the areas they could not handle as an organisation, especially the use of mercury, and this concluded the dissemination.