Source: allAfrica.com
Abuja — With the African fight for the implementation of affirmative action, it has been revealed that three hundred mining claims have been issued to women miners, with a total of 2,000 hectares from Guruve for gold claim. 

 

The Guruve women are from a holding company known as Ruvhenko Mineral Resources Limited, established in 2006 and targeted at women at the grassroots to help them become empowered through mining activities while agitating for their mining rights.

The project was inspired by the Minister of Women affairs, Gender and Employment Development, Scientists, Olivia Muchena, who has a mine on her farm, secured under president Robert Mugabe's controversial Land Acquisition Programme which began in 2000.

A spokeswoman for the company stated that the group began as Harare Women Miners Association under the then Ministry of Women Affairs, Gender and Community Development, but has now spread its membership to virtually all parts of Zimbabwe, with a membership strength of over 3,000.

According to her, the move is coming at a time when Zimbabwe mining industry was still trying to regain its international status after most mines were closed last year for various reasons including lack of finance, dilapidated equipment and low international prices.

She reiterated the challenges they faced which included lack of mining equipment, compressors, investors, ball mills, excavators, water pumps and generators among others.

She was of the opinion that women could increase Zimbabwe's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as minerals were direct foreign exchange earners, while reducing poverty within the family and the entire nation.

Minerals mined she posited, included chrome, gold, platinum, copper, silver and coal among others.

 

• Zimbabwe