Abstract
Gender inequality is an inevitable concomitant of the innate poverty in humanity, a situation to which the Ghanaian society is no exception. This paper explores the underlying elements of gender inequality pertinent to women in the small-scale gold mining sector in Ghana drawing inference from a case study of the Tarkwa-Nsuaem municipal assembly area in the western Region. The contribution of women to the small-scale gold mining sector and through that poverty reduction is immense, notwithstanding a number of factors that alongside militate against their well being. The drawbacks have to do with the unregulated, dangerous and insecure conditions of the small-scale gold mining operators that for the most part, tend be discriminative against women. These are in areas of the health, income and capacity building package benefits to their labour force. The policy implication is the need for government to institute gender-sensitive workplace regulatory policies and programmes to be adhered to in the small-scale mining sector in the country. It should be the responsibility of the municipal and all the relevant regulatory authorities to ensure that the designated policies as well as the attendant rules and regulations are enforced. Key words: Small-scale mining, gold miners, women, poverty.
Highlights
Small-scale gold mining in almost wherever it exist is characterized by a lack of long-term mine planning and use of rudimentary techniques (Hinton et al, 2003)
The data collection mainly focused on the roles that women play in the Dakete small-scale gold mining company limited as well as on the contribution of the small-scale mining sector towards poverty reduction within the Tarkwa-Nsuaem municipality. 100% coverage of the women in the company was targeted but during the period of two weeks purposively targeted for the fieldwork; eighty-one (81) women were interviewed using structured questionnaires
Women within the old age group (50+) recorded 7.4%. This attest to the fact that women within the virile labour force (77.7%) which is within the ages of 20 to 49 are involved in small-scale mining to supplement the income of their families to better their living standards
Summary
Gender inequality is an inevitable concomitant of the innate poverty in humanity, a situation to which the Ghanaian society is no exception. The drawbacks have to do with the unregulated, dangerous and insecure conditions of the small-scale gold mining operators that for the most part, tend be discriminative against women. These are in areas of the health, income and capacity building package benefits to their labour force. The policy implication is the need for government to institute gender-sensitive workplace regulatory policies and programmes to be adhered to in the smallscale mining sector in the country It should be the responsibility of the municipal and all the relevant regulatory authorities to ensure that the designated policies as well as the attendant rules and regulations are enforced
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