Zimbabwe’s women miners left vulnerable to machete-wielding gangs

Banket, Zimbabwe — “It’s been over two years since the attack,” said Shamiso Hozo, owner of the Youth Power Mine in Banket, about 60 miles northwest of the capital, Harare. “I am only getting back on my feet now.”

Hozo is one of the many miners in Banket whose mining operations have been targeted by machete-wielding gangs known as the Mashurugwi, who attack artisanal miners, robbing them of their gold ore, cash, and other valuables.

In November 2017, the Mashurugwi targeted Hozo’s mine, attacking her and her workers — six of whom were severely injured — and looted all her mining machinery, rendering the mine redundant. She has been trying to recover ever since.

“These gangs were organized by people we know,” Hozo said. More than two years after the attack, Hozo’s case remains unresolved with police, she said. While her attackers were purportedly arrested, they were released “with no explanation,” she said. “That points to bribery.”

While Hozo now has just enough equipment to reopen the mine (however far off she remains from being back in full operating form as before), she said she and her crew have been too afraid to return to the mine in case the gang returns — or another one comes. Many of the gangs are suspected to have connections in high places, especially within the security services sector, allowing their crimes to continue unimpeded.

Muchaneta Mundopa, executive director of Transparency International Zimbabwe, told Women Under Siege that while specific statistics are difficult to obtain, corruption is visibly rampant in Zimbabwe: the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission is currently sitting on 77 corruption cases, some connecting to government and law enforcement agents. It has also emerged that while the judicial system has been quick to resolve petty cases, it was battling with larger, more systemic corruption cases, which, she admits, are taking too long to conclude.

At the time, a number of attacks mirroring Hozo’s were taking place, but those crimes went unreported — at least, not publicly — Hozo believes, because the attacks seemed stealthily planned and executed, likely orchestrated by organized criminals, as opposed to random gangs of thieves.

The presence of these gangs in mining areas went largely unnoticed until recently, when a spate of violence in the latter half of 2019 made them impossible to ignore. Heal Zimbabwe Trust (HZT), a civil society organization, counted at least 105 people killed by the Mashurugwi between August and October 2019.

And the attacks have continued well into this year. One particularly brutal attack attributed to the Mashurugwi involved an 80-year-old woman and her 16-year-old relative, both of whom were gang-raped and murdered while three other family members, including minors, were seriously injured.

Although mining in the country has been largely dominated by men, women have been slowly creeping into the sector, sometimes even wielding picks and shovels alongside the men as they dig for precious metals. But they’re still a minority — accounting for 10 percent of the artisanal and small-scale mining workforce — in a sector with a historically violent culture. Women who are not employed by the mining industry but live within mining communities are already a constant target for sexual abuse, whether direct, structural, or cultural, according to the Center for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG). For the women working in mining, it is doubly dangerous.

Women in the sector bear the brunt of the violence targeting the mines; due to cultural beliefs of women’s weakness, they’re seen as soft targets for looting. Another miner from Banket, Tsitsi Mavunga has been trying to purchase a gun for protection, but the licensing process was too cumbersome.

“It’s very difficult to get a gun, especially when you are a woman. So, most women miners are not armed,” she said. “We have since given up.”

The Zimbabwe Peace Project has been monitoring the attacks against women in the sector. According to the project’s national director, Jestina Mukoko, it has yet to produce an exact number of women in the sector who have been attacked, “but we have reports of women who have been forced to shut down their operations [because of them].”

Mavunga has yet to have an encounter with the gangs; however, she informally organizes with some of the other women in the mining community to protect themselves against attack. She told Women Under Siege that more that 10 women in the area were forced to suspended their mines’ operations out of fear.

Cases of collapsing mineshafts and, more recently, the violence erupting over mining claims, have also deterred women from participating in the sector. And, though the Mashurugwi will attack anyone they believe to have any wealth, women are vulnerable to the added threat of sexualized violence.

“Women in mining, particularly in the gold mining sector, experience a number of challenges, such as victimization by male miners, dispossession of their mining claims, and various forms of gender-based violence, resulting in many women fearing to venture into mining,” Fanny Chirisa, representative of the sub-committee on Women in Mining in the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy, told local outlet NewsDay in 2018, as women miners were urging members of Parliament to set up a legal framework to protect them. Two years later, no such framework has materialized, even as the Mashurugwi have been recognized as a national security threat by parliamentarians.

In the wake of the machete-wielding gangs, women in the sector say protection is long overdue; the current situation, they believe, is a threat to women’s participation in the sector and even the sector’s viability.

Acting with impunity

Many have pointed to prominent members of society as orchestrating the attacks for personal gain. In January this year, Muchineripi Chinyanganya, the legislator for Kadoma Central in Mashonaland West province, told a local dailythat he suspected that some top officials in the ruling Zanu PF party were behind the gangs.

“I say so because some of them boast that they are protected,” he said. “It’s now a

national issue and I don’t think it’s going to end soon for as long as they are protected.”

Justice Mayor Wadyajena, a Zanu PF legislator in the Midlands Province, agreed that the Mashurugwi were likely supported or sponsored by politicians but pointed the finger instead to the opposition party’s secretary-general Chalton Hwende of the MDC Alliance.

Yeukai Simbanegavi, the Zanu PF’s youth league secretary for information and publicity, however, said in a statement that the judiciary should deal ruthlessly with the machete-wielding gangs. Their actions, she said, should inspire “the maximum possible sentence for all individual crimes involving machetes” and called on the courts to expedite such cases for quick resolution.

The police, who are poorly paid, also have been accused of entering bribes-for-freedom deals with individuals arrested for various crimes.

In December of last year, the police force warned its members against taking bribes following increasing reports of police officers demanding bribes from people arrested for different crimes.

“Let me reiterate that police does not condone any form of corruption. Help us weed out all forms of corruption,” said Bernard Dumbura, the police commissioner for Harare province, addressing longstanding issues of corruption within the ranks of the Zimbabwe Republican Police. “Report any corrupt officers that you come across. Also remember that it is said, it takes two to tango.”

A threatened economic dream

Last year, President Emmerson Mnangagwa set the target for an annual mining revenue of USD $12 billion by 2023. But that target is in jeopardy if he can’t protect this vital workforce. “They have contributed immensely to the sector,” said Mukoko. “[Attacks against them] will ensure that the government fails to achieve its $12 billion revenue dream,” she said.

What’s more, gold deliveries have been falling well below target in order for the government to meet that revenue goal. The continued downward trend has been attributed to myriad economic challenges, but chief among them are electricity and diesel shortages, according to Henrietta Rushwaya, president of the Zimbabwe Miners Federation (ZMF). Even then, small-scale miners are contributing the lion’s share of those deliveries, much more than their counterparts in the primary production sector.

Gold miners are only legally permitted to sell the mineral to the government-owned Fidelity Printers and Refiners (FPR), which pays less than informal dealers. Many small-scale miners have then resorted to side marketing, selling in the informal market, regardless of the local currency incentives that have been out in place to lure them.

“Women are [the ones] who have been supplying FPR with gold as [most] men prefer [going] through side marketing,” Hozo said. “If there is no security, it’s difficult for women. Male miners do not care about safety; they just sell where it’s convenient.”

But Hozo attributed the fall not only to economic challenges but also to the machete attacks, noting that women are easier targets compared to men miners, who could put up some resistance and fight back.

“For me, the mining revenue will remain a dream if there are no protection mechanisms for us,” she said. “We are [too] afraid to work.”

A way forward with inclusion

ZMF Vice President Lindiwe Mpofu also told Women Under Siegethat without the collective development of a vision inclusive of women artisanal and small-scale miners to address social inequalities, which secures and protects their rights, the attacks will continue and affect the end output of gold, which, in turn, will affect the USD $12 billion projection.

“Zimbabwe has declared that, for economic resuscitation to occur, mining is the focus,” she said. “Inclusion of everyone within the sector should be of utmost importance to the nation in order for Zimbabwe to see a healthy, gender-balanced sector, with an even spread of wealth among its miners.”

One step would be to establish reserve areas specifically set aside for women miners to work safely, free from harassment or assault. “We have repeatedly been calling on government to allocate reserve areas in all provinces across the nation specifically for women in mining.”

Zimbabwe’s government has a long way to go in terms of formalizing and regularizing the artisanal and small-scale mining sector. Until that happens, allocating reserves to women — or any other measure to specifically ensure their safety — remains a pipedream.

Jennifer Mhlanga, the deputy minister of Women’s Affairs, Community, Small and Medium Enterprises Development, concurred: President Mnangagwa’s revenue target was in jeopardy if women were not protected, she told Women Under Siege.

“Before the [Mashurugwi], women were already disadvantaged,” she told Women Under Siege. “You would find men not wanting to be part of the mining compounds because of all sorts of cultural beliefs. To an extent, they think it’s an industry that is only meant for them. Now that there have been efforts to enable women to participate in the industry, giving them claims and access to equipment, we really need to protect them,” she said. “We don’t want our women to shy away from participation in the mining industry because of lack of protection.”

Without divulging any concrete action plans the government was currently undertaking, Mhlanga said, “We stand ready to assist.”

Despite the idealistic approach, however, women like Hozo continue to await justice — and safety. They’ll only return to the mining fields if Mhlanga’s sentiments actually crystallize into government action.