NATURAL RESOURCES ARE A CURSE: A GENDER PERSPECTIVE BY MOSALA QEKISI

NATURAL RESOURCES ARE A CURSE: A GENDER PERSPECTIVE BY MOSALA QEKISI

INTRODUCTION Africa is endowed with natural resources and holds variegated flora and fauna that makes it a vista of a paradisal creation on earth. The region has attracted foreign nationals, who have wielded much sway over the extraction of resources; who have devoured the lion’s share of the continents resources while leaving the natives nibbling at the leftovers on a dinner plate. Due to the late 19th century mining revolution, African men were undermined by social and political engineering to abandon agriculture and from then it was to be a sole responsibility of women to produce food. Most beneficiaries of the new wage system were men and mining was viewed as “men’s work”; however, this has undermined women by being viewed as only capable of providing motherhood roles. The aim of this essay is to debate the assertion that natural resources are a curse in Africa using a gender perspective. 1. ENVIRONMENT When Extractive Industries (EI) open up in a place, women are affected negatively since their land is taken away from them. This can be in the way that there is going to be construction of new infrastructure, such as roads, schools and hospitals, or the land is going to be used for the mine. Musvoto (2001) observes that in many countries, men are typically land titleholders, so men are more likely to be the ones compensated for loss of land. That is, despite their getting their livelihood out of the land, women are not compensated for the loss. That translated into the collapse of agriculture and it becomes even more difficult to find places of collecting firewood. However, such new infrastructure might benefit women in acquiring basic healthcare and in diversifying out of agriculture by investing in education of her children. Although it is important to note that sometimes the infrastructure might not be the one which is needed by women, but which is geared towards supporting the new industry.

The extractive industries often cause pollution to the water resources and that carries health risk for children and it means women take off their time to work and take the sick to hospital. Also if water resources are polluted then it will carry a burden on women and girls to go a long distance in search of water sources. In some cultures women hold some river sites as sacred, for example the sangomas. When the river water is polluted, the women cannot connect with the water spirits at such sites and they have to relocate to another river or streams. This undermines the African traditions and the totality will be the citizens who venerate foreign cultures. It is prudent to note that with industries comes a social responsibility, with which companies help in providing social services such as water and electricity; however; such view remains elusive in the context of Africa whereby foreigners are given latitude to repatriate every profit they make and where they are given long tax holidays. 2. CONFLICT Conflicts are caused by grievances emanating from inequality of wealth, limited political rights and ethnic clashes. The money from the revenues can be used as a start up for insurgency groups or it can be used to bolster their activities and to pay their followers. Ballantine (2003) posits that economic incentives and opportunities have not been the only or even the primary cause of these armed conflicts; rather, to varying degrees, they interacted with socioeconomic and political grievances, inter-ethnic disputes, and security dilemmas in triggering the outbreak of warfare. Women are often put off in any developmental projects during the warring period and are not involved in peace negotiations. They are called back when there is economic stability especially when all men have been absorbed in all jobs. Sometimes rebels who were fighting the government, often men, are offered amnesty and then absorbed into the country’s military and their key leaders are given prestigious posts in the government. There is an increase in the Gender Based Violence (GBV) during war. The increase happens because rape is used as a weapon of war. According to the BBC radio show (Jan, 2013), In Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) sexual violence and armed conflict was a successful tactic because it humiliates, shames and traumatises the victims. It creates disharmony and breaks the social fabric and it is more effective because every single family is affected by one child born out of rape. Marxists argue that all history is of class struggle and conflict will never cease to exist as

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long as the class system persists. Thus, women will always be dominated and subjugated by rape in countries where there are resources. 3. EMPLOYMENT AND INCOME When extractive industries setup in the region women get jobs directly as employees and indirectly by adopting to new income generating activities such as catering and laundry services for the workers. However, women are still, unfortunately, a small margin as compared to men in the mines. For example, Hoadley (2003) shows that in Zambia, until shortly before the publication of the quoted paper, the law did not allow women to work underground except by virtue of an exemption, which could be granted upon application. In other countries, discrimination is based on a combination of stereotypes within the EI companies and within communities (often amongst both men and women) that EI work is “men’s” work. In mining, for instance, in many communities, superstitions and traditional beliefs dictate that women should not enter mines, for fear of explosions, or that women will drive ore bodies deeper into the earth (Hinton, 2003). The exclusion of women from mining industries can be counterproductive to both the company and in the family. Men have a tendency to be secretive on their incomes and they all pass a margin of it to women and the rest they spent on luxuries such as beer, food and prostitutes. This causes less spending on health care and education for such a family. Also companies do not consider skilled women by favouring men over women. The result is a company hiring less productive men. Furthermore, due to the influx of male workers, there will be a rise in prostitution and sexually transmitted diseases rising from the poverty experienced by women. Men abandon their families and go for a long time without coming back to their families. They come back after a long stretch of time with HIV and women have a responsibility to take care of them, that puts a women out of work and there will be decreased income in the household. 4. COMMUNITY CONSULTATION Opinions of the communities are reflected often in community gatherings on how they should be compensated and the social responsibility that should be radiated by the EI. Most often only men 3

are invited or women are invited but not given an opportunity to speak. In other consultations, companies assume that women exercise some control or influence over their husbands implicitly, or that husbands have consulted their wives, such that the men speak for the women’s needs as well. This is often not true, and overlooks women without husbands (World Bank, 2001). It is shown that where men are involved in negotiation, projects with less development impact are chosen, but women choose projects with long term development impact, such as water, schools and health care. It is also essential to note which women are involved in the negotiations because some women may be the ones who perpetuate the elite capture and ignore the voices of women in the grassroots level. Also there is a tendency to include women with high political patronage; it is in dismay that they often echo the agendas of their political parties and offer services using patronclient politics. The introduction of technology for extracting resources is mainly worked by men and it was not developed to cater for female employees. Most of the training is offered to men on how to use such machinery. However, it has been shown that men are careless and where women have had the opportunity to use such technology there was care in its use and it had an opportunity of lasting for a very long time. CONCLUSION Women have a different relation from men in regards resource allocation as a result of gender being a social construct. Women relate to the environment differently from men: women are at the mercy of the environment and have a responsibility to protect it, while men exploit the environment for profit maximisation. Therefore, I can surmise that women are sustainable in the use of the environment; however, there is a paradox when it comes to environmental management since women are segregated in such negotiations. The women are excluded in mineral industries because they are perceived as “weak” and often being out of work because of the menstrual cycles and pregnancy. There have been countries which have legislated that women be involved in extraction industries, but the margin is a shame as there is no country in the world that the percentage of women exceeds 10 per cent.

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REFERENCES Ballantine, K. (2003). Beyond Greed and Grievance: Reconsidering the Economic Dynamicsof Armed Conflict, The Political Economy of ArmedConflict: Beyond Greed and Grievance. London: Lynne Riener. Hinton, J., et al. (2003). Women and Artisanal Mining: Gender Roles and the Road Ahead.” The Socio-Economic Impacts of Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in Developing Countries. Netherlands: A.A. Balkema, Swets Publishers Hoadley, M. (2003). Gender Equity in the Minerals Sector in South Africa. Paper presented at the Women in Mining Conference: Voices for Change. Madang, Papua New Guinea. Musvoto, A. (2001). Gender and mining: community. Birnam Park: African Institute of Corporate Citizenship. World Bank, (2001). Engendering development through gender equality in rights, resources, and voice. New York: Oxford University Press.

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