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By Lewis Machipisa HARARE, Dec 8 (IPS) - Five years ago, Namakau Kaingu gave up the luxury of her air-conditioned office in the city for overalls, safety boots and a shovel. She went into the bush, picked up a few stones and took them to the Geological Survey in Zambia, where the stones were identified as aquamarine, a precious mineral found in Zambia.
Kaingu immediately knew that she was in business. But one day, ''men just came and shot bullkets at the hut that I was sleeping in at night with a view to scaring me so that I could stop mining in the area. That only gave me more courage, and I went to the Home Affairs Ministry and armed myself for protection and started mining,'' Kaingu says.
Today, she boasts of owning three mines in Zambia, home to one of the world's best quality precious stones and now heads the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Women in Mining Trust, formed in early November in the Zimbabwean mining town of Kadoma.
Organised by the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Trust aims to help women improve their status within the sector. But that journey is proving rocky for the women miners as they are finding it difficult to make a big break into the male- dominated sector.
''We face a lot of rejection and we are not taken seriously by people in the field. There are a lot of traditional obstacles along the way. Chiefs feel undermined when they see women coming to mine in their areas. They are hostile,'' says Rita Mittal secretary of the Association of Zambian Women Miners(AZWM), which was formed in 1996.
Kaingu notes that some countries in the region still have laws in their mining policies that forbid women from going underground.
''In certain instances, cultural norms say that women are not supposed to go into the mines. There are some myths that if a woman goes underground, the stones (minerals) will disappear,'' Kaingu told IPS.
''If you go to the ministries of mines in the region, you find that geologists are men, engineers are men, metallurgists are men, surveyors are men and the people in charge of explosives are all men, so these are the imbalances we want to change,'' says Kaingu. ''Women can actually do all the other works that men are doing.''
The SADC Women Mining Trust wants the mining sector to be visible, transparent, vibrant and one that will not have any gender imbalances. ''Later on we also want to link with other women in Africa so that we have African women in mining,'' says Kaingu.
Although there are no exact figures on how many women are involved in mining, because the figures are still being compiled, Kaingu estimates that there are more than 600,000.
Martha Bitwale, chairperson of the Tanzania Women Miners Association, says that in her country, more than 100,000 women are in mining.
A former teacher and accountant, Bitwale, who is also vice- chairperson of the SADC Women in Mining Trust, has been mining for 10 years now. ''We didn't know what we were missing. There is lots of money to be made from mining.'' But like most women miners in Africa, Bitwale has found her sharee of problems.
''Being a woman, there are some natural hazards in the bush. There are wild animals, sometimes you need to climb a tree to run away from an animal. And because you are with men out there in the bush, you fear being raped,'' says Bitwale..
The obstacles vary from country to country. In Angola, it is the landmine problem that is proving arduous for women who want to get into mining.
''We have mines, but we can't go there because of landmines and that is the biggest problem in Angola,'' says Regina Fontes Pereira-Helmore of Angola.
Angola does not yet have a national association for women miners, because they have not been able to get the people together. Their movement is hampered by landmines. According to some estimates, the country is planted with about nine million landmines.
''Sometimes to reach the mines you have to go there by plane and that is very expensive,'' Pereira-Helmore told IPS. Having a mine in Angola would make great economic sense given the vast abundance of diamonds in that country. But, ''it's very difficult to get diamond land, because it's very expensive. It is in these areas that we would like women to venture,'' says Pereira-Helmore.
''For a small piece of land where there are diamonds, you have to pay 50,000 U.S. dollars. Then, you have to provide equipment, which is a lot of money, so we have to go into partnerships as women,'' she says.
Constraints like funding, training, marketing and equipment keep many women from venturing into the sector. Women also have to contend with outdated and unequal policies.
''Government policies hinder development of women, so through the SADC Women in Mining Trust, we hope to lobby various groups for acceptance and recognition,'' says Bitwale.
According to Mittal, the field is wide open for women in Zambia. ''We are still scratching the surface in Zambia. The number of minerals and stones that are available in Zambia are unlimited. We in the small-scale mining sector are into gemstones and prices of gemstones have not really fallen.''
Besides copper and other metals, emerald, amethyst, aquamarine, tourmaline, garnet and malachite have been found in Zambia. ''Women are very hard working and dedicated and so when they decide they are going to do something, they will really and sincerely go for it. Men are threatened, because they have been the main players for a long time,'' says Mittal.
One of the main reasons behind the SADC Women's Mining Trust, Mittal says, is for women entering the sector to pool their strengths and help each other across national boundaries.
''... The idea of forming an association is to identify each others strength, ideas, and products so that when I need such and such a mineral, I know where to go to,'' says Mittal. ''We are opening our countries into new markets. Why go to London to buy Zambian gemstones?. Come to Zambia and buy it direct, straight where it is.'' (ENDS/IPS/lm/pm97)
