Artisanal Gold Council Menu
en English▼
X
ar العربيةzh-CN 简体中文zh-TW 繁體中文en Englishtl Filipinofr Françaishi हिन्दीid Bahasa Indonesialo ພາສາລາວmn Монголmy ဗမာစာno Norsk bokmålps پښتوfa فارسیpt Portuguêsru Русскийes Españolsw Kiswahili
DONATE
COVID-19 PORTAL
COVID-19 CALL TO ACTION
Artisanal Gold Council
DONATE
COVID-19 PORTAL
COVID-19 CALL TO ACTION
  • Home
  • What We Do
    • Our Approach
    • Our Services
  • Who We Are
    • Our Team
    • Board of Directors
    • Partners
    • Careers
  • Our Work
    • Asia
    • South America
    • Africa
    • Global
    • planetGOLD
  • Investments
    • Responsible Artisanal Gold ETF
  • Tools
    • Gold Price Calculator
    • Training Materials
    • Videos
    • Useful Links
  • Library
    • Country Studies
    • Presentations
    • Related Literature
  • News
    • AGC in the Press
    • Events
    • FAQ
    • Videos
  • Blog
    • Blog Subscription
  • Contact
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • en English▼
    X
    ar العربيةzh-CN 简体中文zh-TW 繁體中文en Englishtl Filipinofr Françaishi हिन्दीid Bahasa Indonesialo ພາສາລາວmn Монголmy ဗမာစာno Norsk bokmålps پښتوfa فارسیpt Portuguêsru Русскийes Españolsw Kiswahili
  • Search
  • Home
  • What We Do
    • Our Approach
    • Our Services
  • Who We Are
    • Our Team
    • Board of Directors
    • Partners
    • Careers
  • Our Work
    • Asia
    • South America
    • Africa
    • Global
    • planetGOLD
  • Investments
    • Responsible Artisanal Gold ETF
  • Tools
    • Gold Price Calculator
    • Training Materials
    • Videos
    • Useful Links
  • Library
    • Country Studies
    • Presentations
    • Related Literature
      • Recent publication on assessing mercury exposure
      • What does a national public health strategy for ASGM look like?
      • The Minamata Convention on Mercury: A Beginner’s Guide
      • A Simple Public Health Strategy for ASGM
      • The Effect of Changing Gold Prices on Artisanal Mining
      • Mercury Recycling in Artisanal Gold Mining: The Good and the Bad
      • Historical and Modern Government Responses to Artisanal and Small Scale Gold Mining
      • Concentration of Gold Ores – a Key to Reducing Mercury Use in Artisanal and Small Scale Gold Mining
      • Is Borax the Miracle Chemical that Will Replace Mercury in Artisanal Gold Mining?
      • Health and Artisanal Gold Mining
      • Fifty thousand gold shops in the world’s artisanal gold supply chain
      • World Artisanal Gold Production
      • Silver Causes Huge Increase in Mercury Use in Artisanal Gold Mining
      • Price of mercury rising faster than gold
      • 60 Minutes Upcoming Conflict Gold Piece
  • News
    • AGC in the Press
    • Events
    • FAQ
    • Videos
  • Blog
    • Blog Subscription
  • Contact
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Instagram
  • en English▼
    X
    ar العربيةzh-CN 简体中文zh-TW 繁體中文en Englishtl Filipinofr Françaishi हिन्दीid Bahasa Indonesialo ພາສາລາວmn Монголmy ဗမာစာno Norsk bokmålps پښتوfa فارسیpt Portuguêsru Русскийes Españolsw Kiswahili
  • Search

Challenges and opportunities for women at artisanal gold mining sites in Burkina Faso

By Aimée Florentine Kaboré, Communication Specialist, planetGOLD Burkina Faso and Anupama Ariyaratne, Communications Officer, Artisanal Gold Council - October 15, 2020

Tagged as: Tags Burkina Faso, Rural women, Women

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining often uses rudimentary technology, requires physically demanding dangerous labour and is routinely undertaken by marginalized communities in an informal setting. In Burkina Faso, approximately 20-30% of those working on mine sites are women, where they carry out various tasks such as crushing ore, collecting water, concentrating ore using sluices, in addition to being solely responsible for the household chores.

However, women miners generally do not have equal ownership or rights over resources, are not involved in decision making or consulted about mining plans including finding new sites or returning to old ones. They are not considered in terms of primary payments as the expectation is that they will make do with simple low paying labour like crushing rocks or with whatever they can extract from discarded materials like low-grade rocks or tailings.

A woman performing household chores at the mine site (Photo: Dr. Kevin Telmer, Artisanal Gold Council)

 

Artisanal mining sites in Burkina Faso use crude ore processing and gold extraction methods which lead to reduced gold recoveries and lower incomes than might otherwise be obtained. Primary ore is first crushed either manually or mechanically. Manual ore crushing is mainly carried out by women where long-term exposure to harmful silica dust can cause respiratory illnesses such as silicosis, chronic bronchitis or tuberculosis. Crushed ore is finely grinned, and women who are considered skilled at meticulous tasks, concentrate the gold using traditional sluice washing. Gold is extracted from the primary gold concentrate or sluice wash residue, using mercury amalgamation despite Burkina Faso law prohibiting the use of mercury in the ASGM sector.

Exposure to elemental mercury can lead to acute and chronic mercury intoxication and the toxic heavy metal persists in the environment where it can accumulate in fish and mammals. Mercury is detrimental to the developing fetus; high exposure can lead to serious birth defects and intellectual disability; low exposure can cause for example the long-term developmental problems. Since mercury can accumulate in the body, women exposed to mercury even before the beginning of a pregnancy can experience detrimental effects. Therefore, women of childbearing age and pregnant women should not take part in gold extraction processes using mercury, especially vaporization.

A woman miner performing traditional sluice washing

A woman miner at work with her young child by her side (Photo: Dr. Kevin Telmer, Artisanal Gold Council)

 

The Global Environment Facility (GEF) funded planetGOLD Burkina Faso project, designed and supervised by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, executed by the Artisanal Gold Council, is working towards eliminating mercury use in the artisanal gold mining sector by improving access to mercury-free technologies. The initial project goal is to identify a suitable mine site to pilot the installation of a mercury-free high recovery processing system, which will eliminate the use of mercury in gold extraction and increase gold recovery rates. In addition, the project aims to empower women in accordance with the GEF policy on gender equality by mainstreaming gender in all project activities. This includes gender-responsive planning of all project activities, acknowledging the specific needs of women and men miners to ensure that they are provided equal opportunities to participate and benefit from any project activities.

 

WOMEN FEAR THAT THE PROPOSED PROCESSING SYSTEM WILL ELIMINATE THEIR INCOME OPPORTUNITIES

 

During visits to Gnikpiere, Tonka-La, Djarkdougou and Fandjora artisanal mine sites in July 2020, the planetGOLD Burkina Faso team observed the presence of gender-biased inequalities. Typically, women miners are mainly engaged in traditional sluice washing for which they are not paid in cash. Instead, women are compensated with the leftover sluice washing which they sell or re-process to extract the remaining gold using mercury amalgamation. While men at all sites welcomed the installation of the proposed mercury-free treatment unit, the women miners were worried that the unit will perform all operations of ore processing, eliminating the need for their labour. The head of the Tonka-La mining site, Salam Ouarma, an artisanal miner with twenty years of experience, promised to give up mercury and contribute to the fight for mercury elimination if his site was chosen to pilot the installation of the processing unit.

A woman miner with leftover sluice washing (Photo: Dr. Kevin Telmer, Artisanal Gold Council)

A woman miner performing sluice washing while taking care of young children (Photo: Dr. Kevin Telmer, Artisanal Gold Council)

 

The women miners fear that the unemployment and lack of access to tailings that contain gold will obliterate their only source of income.  Maria Dao, a woman miner at the Tonka-La mine, sighed: “We help men with washing the mineral powder. In exchange for our labour, we always benefit from the tailings which we reprocess to extract gold. This is our sole source of income, therefore we hope that after installing the mercury-free processing unit, the project will help us survive.”

Interestingly, some men miners were also concerned about how women will be impacted by the installation of the proposed gold processing unit. Moussa Kindo questioned: “What will be the future of women who derive their income from the gold extracted from leftover tailings in exchange for their labour for ore processing?” The income generated by secondary processing of tailings is crucial for many women, a condition exacerbated by the fact that some men take no responsibility in providing for their families despite their higher income.

A group of women miners, some with their young children at Gnikpiere mine site in Dano

 

During the last site visit to Fandjora, the only site with a women’s mining association, Asseta Sana, the head of the association, was able to bring women miners together for a meeting. During the meeting, Ms. Sana highlighted the urgent need to improve access to resources for women miners. She also mentioned the pressing need to improve infrastructure to ease household chores which are considered women’s responsibility. She described how they were lucky to have a water well installed for the site as a solution for the drudgery of acquiring water. “We are lucky because we have access to this water borehole. Otherwise, the only source of drinking water is the river in the village next door,” she said.

Women performing household chores (Photo: Dr. Kevin Telmer, Artisanal Gold Council)

 

PROJECT’S INITIATIVES TO ENSURE GENDER EQUALITY THROUGHOUT PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION

 

Women empowerment is a key aspect of the planetGOLD Burkina Faso project in accordance with the GEF gender policy. The project will carry out a gender-sensitive local stakeholder mapping to understand the different roles and activities of local miners. It will uncover gender differences and gaps in the types of roles that women perform at mine sites and how they are remunerated. Based on this analysis the project will determine gender-differentiated impacts of the installation of the mercury-free gold processing system and identify opportunities to address any adverse gender impacts. Improved processing can provide many new and diverse jobs for women. For example, the formality emplaced through the project requires many clerical roles such as accounting, and women could, rather than extracting paltry amounts of gold from tailings, work in more highly paid and safer roles involved in the processing plant operations.

National project coordinator explaining the proposed mercury-free high recovery processing system to a group of women miners

 

The planetGOLD Burkina Faso project, in line with the GEF gender policy “Guidance to advance gender equality in GEF projects and programs” and UNIDO ‘s “Policy on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women”, has already taken measures to mainstream gender by including women miners in the negotiations proceeding processing plant installation. The inputs from individual women miners and women’s mining associations is essential for the successful delivery of the project. In addition, the project will ensure women miners’ participation in training programs, workshops, seminars etc. to facilitate a gender-responsive approach during project implementation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  • Tweet
  • Share 0
  • LinkedIn 0

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

extra news title

Latest Posts

Latest News

The Resiliency of the Philippine Small-Scale Mining Communities: Bayanihan Amidst Super Typhoons and a Pandemic

Dec 29, 2020

    Three weeks. Three typhoons. Extensive flooding. Destructive landslides. Thousands of people huddled in evacuation centers amidst the…

Read More

Artisanal and small-scale gold mining boosts rural programs and infrastructure development in the Philippines: The case of Buenavista, Quezon

Nov 12, 2020

  Gold mining in the Philippines is a major contributor to economic development and it occurs in two main forms: large-scale, and artisanal and…

Read More

extra twitter title

Latest Tweets

Latest Tweets

2 days ago
Alexandra Readhead's Twitter avatar
Alexandra Readhead
@ali_readhead

We do some really exciting work with @OECDtax, @ATAFtax to help resource-rich countries tackle #BEPS in #mining. L… t.co/CRnSgPJbH4

Retweeted by ArtisanalGoldCouncil
  • Reply
  • Retweet 16
  • Like 41
19 hours ago
Minamata Convention on Mercury's Twitter avatar
Minamata Convention on Mercury
@minamataMEA

We're happy to announce that all these adopted #MinamataConvention decisions can also be found on the InforMEA port… t.co/SBk6sgk2oP

Retweeted by ArtisanalGoldCouncil
  • Reply
  • Retweet 3
  • Like 3

Translated Posts

  • French
  • Spanish

Subscribe

For updates on the impacts of Covid-19 on artisanal and small-scale gold mining communities and to join the conversation, subscribe to AGC’s blog.


Posts Archive

Archives

  • December 2020 (1)
  • November 2020 (1)
  • October 2020 (1)
  • September 2020 (1)
  • August 2020 (1)
  • June 2020 (5)
  • May 2020 (12)
  • April 2020 (21)
  • March 2020 (1)
  • September 2019 (2)
  • August 2019 (2)
  • April 2019 (1)
  • March 2019 (1)
  • February 2019 (1)
  • May 2017 (1)
  • April 2017 (4)
  • February 2017 (2)
  • November 2016 (2)
  • September 2016 (1)
  • June 2016 (1)
  • March 2016 (4)
  • September 2014 (1)
  • September 2013 (1)
  • July 2013 (1)
  • April 2013 (1)
  • March 2013 (1)
  • June 2012 (1)
  • May 2012 (1)
  • February 2012 (1)
  • July 2011 (1)
  • June 2011 (1)
  • March 2011 (1)
  • November 2010 (1)
  • November 2009 (1)

Live Gold Price


All of the documents and data presented by the AGC on this website are subject to copyright. © Copyright 2021

Custom WordPress site by Quadra Street Designs