By KT Reporter
Experts at Makerere University are calling for more stringent ordinances that restrict children from accessing mines and protect female artisanal miners from sexual exploitation.
This is after researchers at the university conducted a study among young women in the gold mines of Kassanda, Mubende, Busia and Namayingo districts and found more than fifty percent had suffered from a Sexually Transmitted Infection (STI) in the previous year.
Speaking at a results dissemination meeting on Thursday, Dr Stephen Ojambo Wandera, a lecturer in the Department of Population Studies at Makerere University, said they found high rates of sexual exploitation where girls trafficked into the mines are at risk of both teenage pregnancies and HIV.
Wandera says that while there exist by-laws in these areas, there is no awareness and enforcement of these laws.
The researchers sought to assess the economic and health wellbeing of last-mile populations in artisanal and small mining settlements, analyzing their condition of living before the COVID-19 pandemic and its aftermath. They found that more young women have become vulnerable after the pandemic, pushing them into engaging in risky behavior, with 28% testifying to having had more than one sexual partner in the previous year.
While the artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) sector in Uganda is estimated to be employing about 40,000 women, the researchers say this number could be bigger with the dynamics that some work in and out of mines depending on opportunities that are targeted.
This study recruited 810 participants, and according to Prof Betty Kwagala, who was the Principal Investigator on the study, apart from assessing them for effects on their sexual reproductive health, they went ahead to check for the occupational health-related effects and found some to be already suffering from complications resulting from mercury exposure.
Reacting to these findings, Fred Ngabirano, the Commissioner of Children and Youth Affairs in the Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social Development, said exploitation in the mines is something that they have been battling for a long time and that there is a need for mindset change if it’s completely going to be solved.
Meanwhile, in the study, researchers trained participants in the basics of business management and offered them capital to invest to be able to assess if economic empowerment can help in reversing some of the challenges faced by young women in the mines-URN. Give us feedback on this story through our email: kamwokyatimes@gmail.com
