La Paz, Bolivia – June 2022
From June 1 to 3, 2022, women miners from Bolivia, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Peru, and Colombia participated in the event “Mentoring Women Community Leaders on ASM” held by Cumbre del Sajama S.A. and funded by EPGS, which aimed to make visible their work context across multiple countries of the Andean region and exchange their best experiences and challenges to achieve artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) formalization.
Dina Serna, a woman miner from the municipality of Andes (Antioquia), Colombia took part in this event and shared what it means to her to be a women miner:
“We fight against machismo to achieve gender equality. This is strongly seen in mining as we face unfair payment all time.”
The gender-based approach as a cross-cutting strategy
Kamila Gómez, human rights and gender specialist of ARM, also participated in this event to introduce the strategy implemented across mining communities by the Alliance for Responsible Mining. This strategy is focused on promoting the principles of dignity and gender equality to reduce inequalities, which contribute to the permanent construction of a fair and safe work environment for women, who have found themselves vulnerable and discriminated against in the mining sector by being in the middle of different types of violence.
“We recognize the importance of mainstreaming the gender approach to integrate and generate actions aimed at improving the working, social, economic and political conditions of men and women miners. We have taken on this challenge given the socio-cultural barriers that are usually present in mining”.
Exchanging experiences
The Alliance for Responsible Mining was present at this international event with the participation of strategic allied organizations such as Solidaridad of Peru, Women in Mining of Ecuador, Women in Mining of Central America, Hemco of Nicaragua, the National Network of Women Miners of Peru, the National Network of Women and Mining of Bolivia, WIM Bolivia and the Interinstitutional Working Group on Responsible Gold of Bolivia.
During the event, ARM participated in plenary sessions and thematic panels to address the inclusion of gender perspectives in projects in Colombia and the region.
Some of the attendees were women miners from different parts of Bolivia, two women associates from Ecuador, a woman trainer at the RISE Project from Colombia, and a group of women that are part of the Peruvian Mining Women Network (some are also part of the Divinas en Brillo de Oro association) and a woman miner joined the event online from Nicaragua.
The Sustainable Mines Program: An opportunity to promote gender equality and contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals
The Sustainable Mines Program (SMP) encourages miners to be at the heart of the Program, showing their commitment towards compliance with due diligence and the opportunity to make artisanal and small-scale mining an environmentally responsible activity, recognize their efforts and mitigate, prevent and remedy any gender-based violence cases by building gender capacities of men and women miners in the territories.
Learn more about our gender strategy here: https://www.responsiblemines.org/en/gender-equity-and-mining/