One day Karen (not her real name) was making a reasonable living as a gold miner. She purchased a heavy duty machine on a hire purchase arrangement with a view to enhancing her business, and for years was diligent about paying her instalments on time.
The next day she was hit by a wave of mishaps caused mainly by the high rental imposed by claim owners whose land she works. Now she is on the verge of bankruptcy and has been unable to pay her instalments.
Today, she is a broken woman who has just been insulted by an employee of the business from which she purchased the machine. She was begging for some time to make the instalment since she has paid over $30M in the last few years and now owes just over $2M.
Karen is not alone, as President of the Guyana Women’s Miners Organisation (GWMO) Simona Broomes told Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview that many medium-scale miners, both male and female, are facing very difficult times.
There are some 13 members of the GWMO, including Karen, who have turned to Broomes for help in tears. They are medium-scale miners who have loans with the banks for equipment and they are now facing foreclosure on their homes.
“Persons are about to lose their homes with the difficulties that they are facing in the mining sector, and this is pertaining firstly with areas to work,” Broomes told the Sunday Stabroek.
She explained that many persons with dredges do not own a claim, and with all the expenses that come with the business the miner has to find a certain amount of gold to be able to survive.
“It is not like people think, that once you have a dredge you making money; sometimes you are in the most difficult position,” she said, explaining that most of the people who have properties will not allow miners to work where they know a large amount of gold exists, but rather they rent out almost barren areas.
Added to this the claim owner would demand from the miner a certain amount of gold every month as rental, and this can be as much as seven ounces, whether you work or not. In many cases that amount of gold is not found in an entire month making it impossible for the miner to meet his or her monthly obligations to the claim owner.
While she said that recently some miners received land through the lotteries organizied by the Guyana Geology & Mines Commission (GGMC), this has not helped their situation.
“Some of the land is not accessible and one of the things that I am dissatisfied about is to know with the gold price and how small and medium-scale miners are suffering… when they are to hold a lottery it is not a special selected area that has minerals…” she said.
Had the areas been gold-bearing, Broomes said that those who were awarded land would have been sure to earn some money and improve their lives, but instead it is the opposite since while some are not accessible others have no minerals.
According to her unless there are some “special” concessions for small and medium-scale miners, such as duty-free equipment or vehicles, or they are awarded land that has minerals, they would continue to suffer.
Broomes called for a level playing field in the sector as “what goes for one goes for all.” She repeated this also in relation to the granting of leases and titles to properties in interior locations. She noted that in Mahdia residents are restricted to small house lots when in other communities residents have access to larger pieces of land.
But the GWMO is not an organization to sit around and do nothing when faced with problems, and Broomes disclosed that out of the affected women nine of them will be travelling to the US later on a business trip as a group which would see them pooling their resources together to pay for a shipment of items and accommodation.
She said the GWMO also plans to take a proposal to Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment Robert Persaud to assist the affected miners, and this includes permission to work a piece of land they have identified.
“All we are asking for is that opportunity to really climb the ladder to make some money to pay off the bank and things like that, and I hope at least in this case this proposal that we are going to the minister with ‒ I hope it finds favour with him and that he give us the green light to bring about change…There are persons right now who are about to lose their properties,” she said.
“I think that the government and the minister could make a difference and because we know that he [Minister Persaud] could make a difference we are going to go knocking at his door again because persons are just falling at the wayside. Persons without excavators they can’t even mine because they can’t even get workers… they are suffering so bad.”
According to Broomes if a miner does not have a machine, prospective workers are now calling the shots on what they should be paid, which is making it impossible for smaller miners.
“The persons that feel less of the burden are persons with all the options and favours and all that, and those are the larger miners and all the people who get the concessions and so on… and of course they invested their monies and have their properties…”
However, she made it clear that despite the pressures and struggles the women will remain in the sector as there is nothing else “for some of us to do but what we do and what we do best, and I think if we love mining we should be given an opportunity to remain there and make some money and not suffer and to be pushed around…”
She said small and medium-scale male miners share the same problems and are also desperate, but because her organsiation represents women she speaks for them even though she makes representation for men at some forums.
Broomes said she also wants persons to know that the organization does not only address the issue of human trafficking but many other burning issues.
And in the area of mining the organization has made several requests to the
urelevant authorities.
“And none so far has been met, and when I say none I mean absolutely none,” Broomes said, adding that the organisation has not met with Persaud in a while because so far it has just been “talk and talk.”
“I think we are at a waiting stage now to see when we will start to have some movements,” but she went on to qualify this by saying that the recent plight of her members now forces her to request a meeting to address this specific issue.
Child labour
Meanwhile, on another important issue Broomes said the GWMO has been doing some work on the burning issue of child labour, even if it just to sensitise persons to the dangers. As with human trafficking Broomes said she and other GWMO members have witnessed how children are made to work from a very early age in hazardous conditions in the interior.
Broomes said she is aware of the many arguments on the issue and she has no problem with children who help out their parents on farms, in shops or any other area, as this has been happening for years and even she as a child helped out her parents. But the problem comes when the children are kept away from school and made to work, sometimes to support the household.
“Children are going out there to work to maintain the family and not going to school, and this is a problem very widespread… it is not a problem that only exist in the mining sector it is widespread.”
She also cited the authorities for not taking a firmer grip on the situation and pointed to their one notable failing, and that is not following up cases.
To drive home the point Broomes recalled about a year ago the organization was part of an outreach in Itaballi with officials from the Ministry of Human Services & Social Security and the cases of two young girls working in a shop were brought to their attention. The girls were not going to school and sold in the shop in the day and at night. They were used as waitresses and to lure customers to the shop.
“They were referred to as the ‘calling birds’ as they were used to attract the men to the shop…” Broomes said, even though they did not receive any reports of sexual activities.
She said a representative from the ministry met with the parents of the girls and impressed upon them the need to ensure that the school-age girls attend classes.
However, last week when the organization returned to the area on another outreach, members found that the girls have not attended school and are still working, which according to Broomes meant that no follow-up was done on the cases.
She said they have had over 11 complaints from that community alleging child labour, but these have not been investigated. She said too parents of children who are not attending school should be held accountable as every child has a right to attend school.
She observed that if this is happening in Itaballi which is accessible, one can imagine what is happening in interior locations.
Broomes recalled the near death experience for a little boy who appeared no more than 12 who was working as a sailor on a speedboat when the captain, who was driving recklessly, ran into the pontoon she was on and the engine flew off. The child hit his head before being thrown into the river, but managed to hold onto a drum that was thrown out of the boat, and he was hauled back into the vessel.
Broomes said by the time her pontoon reached Itaballi, the child was on land fetching drums to pack into a compound. She went to him and asked him if he had not been hit, “and he said yes, he get hit but it only swell up, and I asked if it was not paining; he said not bad and I when felt the back of his head there was a large bump, but there he was fetching the drums when he could have lost his life.”
Even more frightening Broomes said, was the case of another child no more than five who was there rolling a drum into the compound because he was too small to lift it.
She said upon investigation she was told that the boys were brothers and they have other siblings. Their father usually takes them to the waterfront every day to work, she said, and none of them attends school.
And Broomes said it was also heartrending for her members during their follow-up visit to the community last week to observe the conditions under which the children were being taught. Since the school building was being repaired classes were being held under a pavilion. On that day, she said, it was raining heavily and the ground under the pavilion was nothing but mud and slush. While some children returned home others remained, and the male teacher took off his shoes and was observed standing in the mud teaching the children.
“I want to say very frankly it is really very hard to see how human beings and children are being treated in my country,” Broomes said.
Her view is that even if the school building is being repaired better arrangements should have been made for the children as some working parents regardless of the situation prefer to send their children to school than leave them home unattended.
Residents also reported that the boat which used to take children from Itaballi to Bartica for school no longer operates, because the region indicated that they can no longer afford the service. They also reported that there is no playing facility for the children and while there is a playfield it is not in any condition for children to use, in addition to which a large company in the area is in the process of taking a piece of the field to make a road.
