Preamble:

Mining Affected Communities United in Action (MACUA) and Women Affected by Mining United in Action (WAMUA) are fraternal organisations formed in response to the need to protect the integrity and interests of the people impacted by mining.

MACUA and WAMUA form a movement aimed at raising the voice of communities who have not been consulted in the processes of allocating mining licenses, developing communities and in the distribution of mining rents and wealth, but who bear the brunt of the social, economic and environmental degradation and impacts of mining.

These appalling outcomes are enabled by the exclusion of communities and in particular the failure of mining/extractives law to include communities in all relevant decision-making processes that directly impact on their lives.
MACUA and WAMUA have been actively campaigning for the decriminalisation and Regulation of Artisanal Miners . From its first conference in 2015 when MACUA hosted the first Artisanal Miner’s Conference on March 21 – Human Rights Day to the battles in Kimberly which resulted in the first group of Artisanal Miners obtaining a mining permit and the launch of the National Association of Artisanal Miners (NAAM) in 2019.

It is in light of this ongoing campaign to mobilise marginalised communities in defence of their dignity, that we are encouraged to submit our submissions on the Department of Mineral Resources and Energy’s first Draft Policy proposal.
While we are encouraged by the movement towards regulation, we remain deeply concerned about the xenophobic tone of some of the proposals as well as the continued bias towards developing one set of laws for the poor and another set of laws for the rich.

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