Resource Politics

Rooibos is a profitable resource used all over the world. Yet, the Khoi and San communities who have discovered the potential of the plant for several purposes have not benefited from this success.

BASF is huge corporate that gives Lonmin a lot of business. Today, April 29, in Germany they are gathered for their annual shareholder meeting. Along with the usual shareholders who attend these meetings there’ll be some less familiar faces, two of the women made widows by the Marikana massacre.

The mining industry contributes significantly to the hardship experienced by black women in rural areas of South Africa. For decades, mining houses have drawn in young black men for labour, only for many to return home sick, with little to show for years spent toiling underground.

On 28th August 2015 the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and Sonke Gender Justice were admitted as amici curiae (friends of the court) in a landmark case in which hundreds of thousands of mineworkers who contracted silicosis and/or tuberculosis in South Africa’s gold mines seek justice. This is a significant and great step forward that two public interest organisations are admitted as amici in this landmark case.

WoMin is a regional project established in 2013 that focuses on issues related to women, gender and extractivism. Supported by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and others, the project provides a platform of solidarity and co-operation involving civil society organisations and movements working on or with an interest in extractivism and women's rights in Africa.