Namibian Women in Mining

Mining industries (mainly for tin, tantalum, and other semi-precious stones) makes up a large part of the economy in Namibia. That also means that these industries make up a large proportion of the jobs available to citizens of Namibia.

In other African countries, there is greater gender parity in the distribution of mining jobs. For instance, 75% of mining workers are women in Guinea. 50% are women in Mali and Zimbabwe. In comparison to these other countries, South Africa only has 5% involvement of women in their mining industries. But out of all these countries, Namibia is the worst with regard to gender parity in the mining workplace (only 1% of mining workers in Namibia are women).

This has broad implications for wealth disparities between men and women in Namibia. The lack of equal representation of the genders in the workplace also hinders the ability of women to provide for their families and obtain an education. This is particularly ironic because gold and other mining has traditionally been the role of women in Namibia.

Mines and Energy Deputy Minister, Kornelia Shilunga, addressed a crowd during international women’s day emphasizing the importance of making the mining workplace accessible to women. She commended Debmarine Namibia and the De Beers Group for identifying the lack of equal gender representation in the workplace and making efforts to fix the problem. (Honestly, I am very skeptical of this last part because they are part of the reason that there’s a lack of female representation in the workplace to begin with. This could just be one big PR stunt that is meaningless in the grand scheme of things).

https://www.newera.com.na/2018/03/13/namibian-women-largely-observers-in-mining/

~Scarlett