Structural Violence against Women is a Daily Struggle.

In the villages on the outskirts of Mokopane in Limpopo, the villages in the Mapela/Langa tribal area have been the victims of large scale corporate mining by Anglo Platinum for over 50 years. 

In 2008 ActionAid South Africa (AASA) released a report entitled Precious Metal, which detailed a range of effects on the surrounding villagers which was described in the report as potential human rights abuses. AngloPlat vehemently denied the claims by AASA. 

In 2015 AASA asked the Society Work and Development Institute (SWOP) from the University of Witwatersrand to research the impacts on the community 7 years after our first report was released. What they found confirmed the 2008 report and more shockingly the unchanged reality of the community who live in the shadows of one of the most profitable Platinum mines in the world. 

Between 2008 and its half year report in 2015, AngloPlatinum has recorded R29.3 Billion in profits, yet what the report finds among a host of other outcomes, is the intensification of Apartheid style dispossession and  growing food insecurity within the community.

 Food security and loss of land have impacted the women of the Mapela/Langa in significant ways and its continuation and intensification stands as a stark reminder during especially this time of 16 days of activism against women and children, that the violence visited on the women are all too often hidden in the structural and legislative regimes that are supposed to underpin our democracy. 

The structural violence faced by the women of the Mapela/Langa communities and the hundreds of other mining affected communities across South Africa, stands as a testimony to the hypocrisy that claims allegiance to the cause of women, while ignoring and even applauding, the structures and legislation which legitimises the everyday abuse suffered by some of the most vulnerable members of our society.

Residents of Ga-Chaba, a village in the Mapela district, have historically depended on farming, raising crops and animals to survive. The expansion of AngloPlats` Mogalakwena mine had significantly disrupted this lifestyle. The land on the north-eastern side of the village has been almost completely fenced off by the mine. The mine began fencing off villagers’ ploughing land in 2006.

The SWOP research, which will be released by AASA in February 2016, has found that the lack of food is constantly cited as one of the direct consequences of loss of land the.  

An elderly woman cited in the research commented:

“Re be re eja! [We used to eat! We depended on farming for survival and we were not struggling. We used to eat mabele (sorghum), maize and beans and we were not suffering at all. Now we are no longer farming because they [the mine] took away our ploughing fields”.

Adult respondents narrated how they used to harvest several bags of crops, including sorghum, maize and beans. A woman in her early 60s summarised this:

“My parents made a living out of the land. They cultivated land for crops. They were able to harvest sorghum, maize, beans and many other things which we lived on. We would produce between 10 to 12 bags, depending on the rains. Some would have a harvest of 15 bags. It varied amongst the farmers. After harvest time, we took sorghum and maize for grinding to the milling depot to make sorghum and maize meal. We exchanged grain into ground meal. When that batch ran out we would fetch another sack from storage and consume it and so forth. That was our way of life”.

People in the villages used wage and remittance incomes to build houses, pay for children’s education, and buy clothes and other household needs. According to the respondents of the research, it was uncommon for people to use money to buy food. The land provided food, and so money from wages or remittances was used for other needs.

Unemployment and poverty levels are significantly high in this community who were promised that the loss of land would be amply replaced with development and jobs from the mine. About 59% of the male population and 75% of women were unemployed at the time of the 2011 census (Stats SA 2011).

The SWOP survey found that a significant proportion (81 percent) of income sources for the adult women in this survey is in the form of child support grant earnings. Also significant in terms of the survival of the adult women in the survey is farming on household land and old age pensions. The lowest proportion in terms of the total income sources available to women in this survey is from permanent jobs, remittances in kind and foster care grants.

Establishment of mining activities usually involves the enclosure of agricultural land with households losing both arable and grazing land. According to the SWOP research the enclosure of rural land following the introduction of mining activities tends to have a drastic impact on the ability of households to access and utilise land-based resources. In the rural localities around Mokgalakwena mine, dry-land cropping in large ploughing fields has diminished. Livestock production has also declined because of lack of grazing land.

The survey also found that about 70 percent of the surveyed households cultivated maize before the introduction of mining in the area.  Yet after the introduction of mining only 10 per cent of the households is growing maize. Before mining, 65 percent of the households grew sugar beans and this figure declines to 5 percent after mining.

Rural households in the area have, over the years, relied on agriculture supplemented by wage earnings and cash remittances for their survival and accumulation. The enclosure of arable land for mining activities has destroyed livelihoods in the area.  

The SWOP report confirms that “the displacement of rural households from their customary land is predicated on the supposed economic benefits these investments would yield in these communities especially employment generation. Yet the impact of mining on the welfare of surrounding rural localities in terms of job creation has been minimal. Rural households are dispossessed of their land left with no alternatives since mining does not assuage the problem of bleak employment prospects outside of agriculture in these localities. The anger and discontent amongst rural households in mining localities emanates from the fact that agrarian livelihoods are diminished mainly through land dispossessions while no tangible alternatives are offered to improve their level of livelihood”.

In rural communities where unemployment is rife and food and water is scarce, it is the women who are left with the burden of feeding and sustaining the family. As the mine continues to encroach on the prosperity, dignity and survival of the community the women are in the forefront of efforts to claim their rights and in demanding justice. 

During September this year, when the Mapela community shut down Mogalakwena mine for 10 days to demand justice, the Mapela executive who led the strike, included two determined women leaders who continue to mobilise their community in defence of their rights. But women resist in other ways too. Many of the protesters rarely visited their homes during the strike. Instead they sang and demonstrated on the streets day and night. Women cooked meals along the road for everyone. Villagers put together some money and bought food supplies from town. Others brought whatever uncooked food they had from their homes. Pots were kept boiling on the streets and so was the strength of solidarity among the strikers.

Despite the overwhelming structural inequality ranged against them, and bolstered by legislation and a system that looks the other way, the women of Mokopane continue to resist and refuse to be reduced to an another statistic.

We salute the women of Mokopane and all the brave women of Xolobeni, Thubatse, Witbank, Ermelo, Fuleni, Marikana and the hundreds of other communities who struggle daily against the structures that inflict violence upon them.