From Emmanuel Adeyemi, Lokoja
Touched by the level of gender and child rights abuses going on in mining host communities in the country, Women Mining in Nigeria (WMIN) has entered into a partnership with Nigeria Human Right Commission to put an end to the ugly trend.
To this end, WIMIN is currently developing a mobile application where incidences of gender and child rights abuses at the mining host communities can be streamed live and reported simultaneously to the NHRC for immediate follow-up.
According to the Women Miners, the mobile app will be dynamic and will incorporate other features of offline reporting, reporting by proxy, and anonymous reporting, among others
In addition to that, WINIM said it will be setting up a toll-free hotline to entertain reports of gender and child rights violations in mining host communities for immediate and rapid response.
The President/Founder, Women in Mining in Nigeria, Engineer Janet Adeyemi, expressed the worry while paying an advocacy visit to members of the organisation in Kogi state on Wednesday in Lokoja.
The advocacy visit was prior to the commencement of a three-day capacity-building training for women in mining in the state.
Adeyemi said that it’s on record that women are constantly abused, misused, over-laboured, underpaid, shortchanged and even raped by the male labourers and staff of mining companies.
“Considering the challenges above, Women In Mining In Nigeria with the support of Open Society Foundation (OSF), has now launched a 1-year programme in 3 states of Nigeria with the sole aim of “Safeguarding the Rights of Women and Children in the Solid Minerals Sector in Nigeria”
She said that the companies also unlawfully welcome the labour of young children who should not be exposed to the mining environment yet but should be in school.
“The children are stretched and over-laboured by mining companies and their wages are given to their mothers who are equally on the mining site,” she said.
According to her, Kogi State is one of those 3 states selected to embark on capacity-building training for the female miners in Lokoja.
Others states on the list include Ekiti State and Bauchi State and with states chapters established across the 6 geo-political zones in Nigeria which has given the organisation a national outlook.
WINIM is a non-profit, non-political organisation focused on women’s advancement by empowering women to engage in safe and sustainable mining practices in Nigeria and ensuring that gender and human rights issues affecting women and children are properly addressed.
Other activities revolve around capacity building, health, and safety, sustainability, good and inclusive governance, economic integration of women through digitisation into the metal market, promotion of responsible mining, sourcing and value chain addition, taking advantage of network regionally, in Africa and globally
The capacity training programme drew women from all the 21 local government areas of the state with experts drawn from various fields to impart them with the latest knowledge on mining and other related fields.
