Indonesian Women Lead Protests Against Sand-Mining, Calling Men ‘Too Emotional’

In 2021, when a mining company began setting up camp in the iron-sand-rich Indonesian coastal village of Pasar Seluma with plans to start operations, the local women agreed that they’d be leading the protests this time around.

Incidents from about a decade ago were still fresh in the village’s collective memory. Back then, men led protests against a different iron-sand mining company that ended in the arrest of six men, who were later found guilty of damaging property and other charges. Iron-sand originates in volcanic deposits and is rich in iron ore.

Even though the conflict in 2010 stopped all mining activities in the village — which is on the southwest coast of the island of Sumatra — for years, the arrival of a new company, PT Faminglevto Bakti Abadi, signaled to the community that they had to come up with a new strategy to oppose the mining.

Over the years, villagers have witnessed the impacts of mining, especially how it threatens the local population of saltwater mussels, which has for generations been one of their main sources of income.

Pasar Seluma residents also fear that mining will exacerbate the impacts of climate change, such as tidal flooding and coastal erosion, which have already crept into other villages along the coast of Sumatra.

More than 100 women in Pasar Seluma are involved in the village’s movement against mining. Their work is part of a collective effort to protect their home, which is one of 53 villages in the province of Bengkulu classified as highly vulnerable to tsunamis by the country's disaster mitigation agency. Indonesia is no stranger to natural disasters like tsunamis; many of its islands lie on the Pacific Ring of Fire, where 80 percent of the world’s earthquakes occur.

The iron-sand mining will disturb the balance of nature in Pasar Seluma, said Dodi Faisal, head of advocacy for the nonprofit Indonesian Forum for the Environment (WALHI) in Bengkulu. It can cause flooding and habitat loss for birds and sea creatures.

“This mine has the potential to threaten the people’s livelihoods, especially the fishermen and women’s,” he said.

Harvesting saltwater mussels is not just an important part of the economy of the village, it is also a tradition that has been practiced by local indigenous women for decades.

“Most of us who are from here are fishermen and women, and collectors of saltwater mussels,” said Elda Nenti, a 35-year-old woman from Pasar Seluma. “There has been a decrease in the mussel population. We don’t want it to go extinct, for it to no longer be a part of our village.”

In one of their bigger protests, the women set up tents in December 2021 at the mining sites and stayed for five days and four nights, calling on the company to stop operations. The company halted their activities for about a year, but as 2022 saw on and off operations, Pasar Seluma residents continued to protest — with women taking the lead.

“The women of Pasar Seluma who opposed the mining operations agreed to protest, deciding that the men should just stand behind us, because we don’t want a repeat of what happened in 2010,” said Nenti, referencing the arrests. “We don’t want the men to be arrested because they are more emotional, so it’s the women who will fight against the company.”

“We are demanding that the company stop activities because their permits are incomplete,” Nenti said in a phone interview. “They don’t have their environmental licenses.”

In some instances, the company has had the backing of local law enforcement. And often protesters who have demonstrated against the local government have been told that the final decision on issuing operation permits lies in the hands of the central government, in Jakarta.

Like the men, the women also have been reported to the police.

Nenti was among a group of women protesters summoned by the police after a report that they had damaged property. “But nothing was damaged,” Nenti said. “We simply knocked and asked to meet the company representatives, but they didn’t want to come out so we continued to knock and we were reported for damaging their entrance.”

The women said that company employees have verbally harassed them, making lewd sexual comments. Among them was Nenti, who filed a police report after an incident in January. The perpetrator was only arrested about six months later, she said.

Faisal at WALHI, the largest and oldest environmental advocacy NGO in Indonesia, said the company’s mining activities are likely illegal.

“There is evidence, documentation from residents, including videos and photos, that showed how this mining company is carrying out activities illegally,” he said. The material shows the company working despite lacking the proper permits.

Faisal said that women are most vulnerable to the impacts of climate and ecological crises, and, as in much of the world, are still not in the rooms where policy decisions are made.

“The involvement and participation of women is also still very low in policymaking, so it’s very important that there are women-led initiatives to speak out and fight against the impacts of threats of ecological and climate crises,” he said.

Nevi Anggraeni, a 32-year-old woman from Pasar Seluma, said the fight to oppose mining in her village will continue as long as the threat to their livelihoods remains. She traced a direct link from the cessation of the mussel trade to a lack of household income, then to her and other women’s domestic responsibilities, like buying food and taking care of children.

“So if we women, with the situation in Pasar Seluma right now, we just sit here silently, I feel like we are existing in vain,” she said.

“Why are we still fighting to this day?” Anggraeni asked. “It’s because we don’t want our village to be left with only its name, we want what our village has to be enjoyed by our children and grandchildren in the future.”

The women don’t see a point to mining on their land — they don’t benefit financially, and the environmental impacts will only harm them and their families. Frankly, the women said, they don’t need it or want it.

“Without mining, we are already living a rich life, so we hope there will be no mining in our village,” Nenti said. But, she and the other women are ready to keep protesting regardless.

“No matter what, the women and men of Pasar Seluma will fight for our village,” she said.