Women still face significant challenges in the local mining sector, owing to the sector’s deeply entrenched legacy of male dominance, said Department of Mineral Resources (DMR) deputy chief inspector of mines Mthokozisi Zondi.

Speaking at the DMR and the Mine Health and Safety Council’s (MHSC’s) 2015 Occupational Health and Safety Women in Mining conference, in Boksburg, last month, he outlined several of the challenges currently faced by women in the local mining industry.

Zondi said the main challenges included a lack of proper personal protective equipment (PPE) specifically designed for women, safety and security, as well as sexual harassment in the workplace.

He explained that PPE had traditionally been designed with only men in mind, while women miners, who had unique health and safety needs, owing to their anatomical and physiological makeup, were not taken into account.

Zondi emphasised that this was unacceptable and that PPE for women miners must take into account the physiological and anatomical makeup of female mineworkers, must be based on female anthropometric (body measurement) data, the nature of the mining environment and the nature of the work performed.

Additionally, he said that workplace violence and sexual harassment were recurrent problems and a threat to the health, safety and secu- rity of female workers in the local mining industry.

“Lack of formal structures, awareness, educa- tion and support in the management of violence, abuse and sexual harassment in the local mining industry ensure that most female victims either do not formally report incidents or opt to deal with the matter themselves,” stated Zondi.

He further highlighted that policies and pro-cedures for managing workplace violence and sexual harassment were either nonexistent or, where they did exist, obsolete and ineffective.

Mineral Resources Minister Advocate Ngoako Ramatlhodi said during his address to the conference that all industry stakeholders had an obligation to ensure that more women partici- pated in all facets of the local mining industry

“As the DMR, we would like to see this partici-pation being increased. including at regional level through stakeholders’ groupings of the established Regional Tripartite Forums, sup-ported by the MHSC,” he stated.

The Minister noted that the MHSC, through its research programmes, had completed a number of projects aimed at addressing the challenges faced by women in the mining industry.

These projects addressed the PPE of women in mining, their safety and security challenges and the sexual harassment experienced by women mineworkers.

“Through these initiatives, we will be able to advance our objectives of ensuring a safe environment for women to work in the local mining industry,” Ramatlhodi concluded.