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Oxfam South Africa has called on the government to decriminalise and regulate informal mining in an effort to end frequent deaths of illegal miners.
At least 14 bodies belonging to illegal miners were discovered around the abandoned mines of Benoni, Ekurhuleni in the past five days. Police suspect that the motive behind the killings could be linked to rival gangs involved in illegal mining.
Oxfam South Africa said today that it believed that the deaths were avoidable, and were a symptom of much bigger problems faced by communities living alongside abandoned mines.
Thembinkosi Dlamini, senior extractives lead at Oxfam South Africa, said that “when government fails to play its role, the people perish”.
He said artisanal miners were bread winners pushed into informal mining by the current socioeconomic situation in the country and the region.
“The unjust, extractivist approach which treated both minerals and mine workers as things to be extracted for shareholder value elsewhere was just as much to blame.”
He explained that most of the artisanal miners were experienced ex-miners who were offloaded by the system when companies packed and left, often without appropriate exit packages and due process followed.
Dlamini said the government must also license, regulate and facilitate an enabling environment for economic activity by those involved.
“We believe the government should monitor and enforce mining company compliance with respect to rehabilitation after the productive life of mines and also investing in sustainable livelihoods for ex-mine workers. In our view, the problem with the approach to artisanal mining begins with how we characterise it,” he said.
Meanwhile, it’s been nearly two weeks since five-year-old Richard Thole fell into a disused mine shaft in Boksburg’s Jerusalem informal settlement. Thole’s body has still not been found.
According to Ekurhuleni Environmental Organisation’s Mishack Mbangula, there were 356 disused mine shafts in Ekurhuleni alone and about 600 across Gauteng.
“We should also break some common myths, including that ‘all informal miners are non-nationals’ and ‘illegal migrants are part of the syndicates or do so with the intention to become part of the wider syndicates and underground gangs,’” Dlamini said.
