From South Africa to Malawi, mining has stripped communities of land, livelihoods, and health. At the same time, the worsening impacts of climate change, droughts, floods, and rising heat have compounded existing inequalities. Women, who are often the backbone of food production and family care, now face intersecting struggles of exploitation, poverty, and environmental destruction.
For them, the promises of economic development have rarely translated into empowerment. Instead, women find themselves on the frontlines of land dispossession, unsafe labour, and health crises, at the same time sidelined in the very decisions that shape their futures.
South Africa’s extractive economy is often celebrated as the engine of national growth, but for mining-affected communities, that is not the reality. For more than two decades, the organisation I work for, ActionAid South Africa, has worked with grassroots movements such as Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA) and Women Affected by Mining United in Action (WAMUA) to expose the destructive consequences of an industry that promises development but too often delivers devastation.
Mining companies have been accused of poor labour conditions, tax evasion, corruption, pollution, and disregard for health and safety regulations (South African Human Rights Commission, 2018). For women, the effects are particularly devastating. Opportunities for work in the sector are scarce and often dangerous, while women in surrounding communities endure compounded oppressions of gender, poverty, and rural marginalisation.
The health consequences are stark. Mining communities report rising cases of miscarriages, birth deformities, cancers, and terminal illnesses. Women are often left to care for sick relatives while also struggling to secure food, clean water, and income. Poverty and inequality drive many into unsafe work or transactional sex, exposing them to HIV/AIDS and deepening cycles of exploitation.
In many areas, women are forced to buy water with the little income they earn because municipal water delivery can take up to three months to reach communities. Without reliable water, women wash clothes in polluted rivers where animals also drink, risking disease and injury. Forced relocations due to mining activities mean that families who could feed themselves from subsistence farming and livestock find themselves with land lost and livelihoods destroyed. Women say they now struggle to secure even the most basic necessities. Those who have tried to challenge these injustices face intimidation from local leaders.
In Malawi’s Balaka and Nkhotakota districts, under traditional authorities, women have told strikingly similar stories of exclusion and harm. According to ActionAid’s on-the-ground research, land grabs are common, and 71% of the women the organisation surveyed in 2022 reported losing land to illegal miners. Families were pushed aside with little or no compensation, undermining both livelihoods and dignity.
In Chitimbe village, polluted rivers and damaged water systems force women and girls to walk long distances in search of clean water. This reduces time for education, income generation, or rest, while creating serious risks for pregnant, elderly, and disabled women. Food insecurity follows, with cascading effects on children’s nutrition.
Many women and youth are drawn into informal mining, crushing stones, collecting sand, or processing terrazzo without protective gear. Earnings are meagre – between $4 and $17 a day, according to the ActionAid survey – and the work is dangerous, exposing them to respiratory illness and mercury poisoning. The environmental toll is equally severe: soil erosion, silted rivers, and ecosystem collapse, all of which undermine agricultural livelihoods, push communities deeper into poverty.
Although separated by borders, the experiences of women in both South Africa and Malawi reveal a regional pattern of gendered exploitation in extractive economies. Land is more than a resource; it is security, identity, and survival. Women and men both have the right to own, control, and access land, yet in much of Africa, women face entrenched barriers. They provide the bulk of agricultural labour, producing food for households and markets, but rarely own the land they work, as noted by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in a 2018 report.
When women have secure land rights, household welfare improves, bargaining power within families increases, and public participation grows. Yet patriarchal norms and discriminatory legal frameworks deny many women this basic right. Remedies for land violations are often ineffective, and women who resist risk further displacement or exploitation, facing hostility from chiefs, officials, and even their own communities.
If mining has scarred communities, climate change is deepening the wounds. In South Africa, for example, where women make up as much as 80% of agricultural labour, climate-induced droughts and floods directly undermine food production. Female-headed households are disproportionately food insecure, with more than half struggling to meet basic needs (UNDP, 2021).
Water scarcity worsens menstrual hygiene management, leading to infections and absenteeism. Women and girls walk long distances for water, facing risks of assault and exhaustion.
In Malawi, frequent floods and droughts overwhelm the health system, fuelling cholera, malaria, and malnutrition. Women with HIV or TB are particularly vulnerable.
Mining’s burden cannot be separated from the broader climate crisis. Both disproportionately harm women’s health, strip away land and livelihoods, and heighten gender-based inequalities. Addressing one without the other risks leaving women in perpetual cycles of dispossession, poverty, and ill health.
True progress thus requires a transformation of development models. Mining cannot continue to chase profits while leaving communities in ruins, nor can climate policy succeed if it ignores gender inequality.
If Africa’s mineral wealth and climate adaptation strategies are to serve the people, policies must put women at the centre.
Mining companies must be held accountable for the social and environmental costs of extraction. Communities deserve fair compensation, safer working conditions, and meaningful participation in decisions that affect their land and livelihoods. ActionAid and MACUA argue that women’s voices, long excluded, must guide these processes.
Regional bodies such as the African Union (AU) and Southern African Development Community (SADC) must also coordinate cross-border strategies for gender-responsive mining and climate governance.
Women’s rights must also be recognised under customary and statutory laws, including the principle of free, prior, and informed consent (FPIC) when it comes to land and resource decisions. This gives women the authority to approve, refuse, or negotiate any projects that affect their land and livelihoods.
Above all, women must be recognised not only as policy beneficiaries but also as active agents of change. Their leadership is essential to any transformation worth its name.
Anything less will leave the continent trapped in a cycle where women continue to bear the brunt of crises they did not create.
Caroline Ntaopane
Caroline Ntaopane is the Mining and Extractives Officer for ActionAid South Africa, part of ActionAid International Federation, a global social justice federation working in 45 countries around the world.
