Abstract
M.Tech. (Extraction Metallurgy)
There is a Sesotho proverb that says: “Mmangwana o tshwara thipa ka bohaleng”, which loosely translated means that “the child’s mother handles the knife on the sharp edge”. Women have always been in the forefront of stabilizing communities through cultivating lands, bringing up children and heading households in the absence of husbands working elsewhere. The active participation of females in underground mining has been very limited, due to legislation in most parts of the world. South African women were only allowed to work underground in the mines after the passage of the Mines Health and Safety Act of 1996 (No 29 of 1996). Despite their formal admission to work underground, women were still encountering problems in being integrated into the teams. Sexual discrimination and lack of proper suitable facilities for women are some of the challenges women are faced with. These inequalities and anomalies were addressed by the introduction of the Broad Based Socio Economic Empowerment Charter for the Minerals and Mining Industry, (Mining Charter) in 2002. The Mining Charter required various transformation measures to be implemented in the mining industry. This included the requirement for the mining companies to achieve 10% female representation, as a function of their total workforce, in technical fields, by the year 2009. In essence, where the mines employed women in staff positions historically, they are now...