QUARRY MINING: LABOUR ON WOMEN AND CHILDREN IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES



As already identified, the greater negative impact of mining has been experienced by women as the large-scale mining activities have taken place in the rural areas where there are majority of the poor women. World Development Report (1998) observed that the changes, as a result, in the economic lives of these rural women with their already marginalized status in the developing nations are further degraded, being completely transformed from a position of dignity to one of humiliation and deprivation .National family health survey (1993);
Saxen and Dayal (1997); Fernades and Mesquite (1995) noted that in  most third world countries especially in the rural areas, lack of skills and poverty make them resort to any available type of occupation including those that are exploitative.

Misra (2003) equally noted that the age distribution of women mine workers in India is an interesting indicator of women’s exploitation in mining. In the age group of 5-14 women form 40% of the workforce, in the 15-19 age group, they form 27% and there is a corresponding decrease as the age of women increase. While it is not to say that exploitation of male children is desirable, the fact that girl child labour is employed on a large scale in mining is a ground for serious concern.

The ministry of labour’s statistical profile of women and labour, in its fifth  issue (1998) identified that the tragic paradox of women’s labour in the organized sector is their highly visible presence as contract labour within the public   sector mines. It was noted that in India, when employing women as daily wage labourers or bonded labourers, to perform the same tasks, their dress does not become a hindrance to the mining companies. When one passes through the stretches of coal mines or iron ore mines, one witnesses   women labourers by the thousands employed in head loading, stone breaking, cleaning and other forms of daily wage labour, where they are entirely at the Mercy of petty contractors and have absolutely no work safety or security.

Not withstanding the skeletal work done on African women quarry miners, there are few like the work of John (1980) on the pit women’ of South Africa, where he identified that women’s work in the mines have remained obscured and hidden, forgotten and devalued. He stated that the mine pits have come to be the playing fields of men, the work either excluding women altogether or attributing a lower place to women. He identified that there are differences when studying  women in mining partly because the different countries  experience different problems even in developing countries because of the multitude of identities of women in developing countries. Lahiri-Dutt (2000) observed that there is not yet enough literature that illuminates how gendered identities and inequalities are constructed  and sustained in mines in developing countries, but poor working conditions in the pits of the past, gave rise to a strong sense of occupational identity, which often extended to entire mining communities, but nevertheless rendered women and their work in the mines invisible. The heavy manual character of the work, the dirt and risk tend to be emphasized and tend to make the male miners the typical labourers, and to protect their   interest over those of women workers (Eveline 1995).
       
Hentschel, Hruschka and Priester (2001) did a study on artisanal and small- scale mining: challenges and opportunities in twelve selected countries; (Bolivia, Peru, Ghana, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia,  China, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines) (See www. iied. Org /mmsd), and observed that there are regional differences but in most cases common issues. The ASM were characterized by a number of issues which include;  low level of occupational safety and health care, poor qualification of personnel at all levels of the operation, low level of salaries and incomes, lack of social security, insufficient consideration of environmental issues etc. According to the analysis, there are five major health risks in small-scale mining and processing; these are; exposure to dust (Silicosis); effects of noise and vibration,   poor ventilation (heat, humidity, lack of oxygen); and effect of over-exertion, in adequate work space and inappropriate equipment.
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