ABSTRACT
Women's direct participation in artisanal and small scale mining (ASM) varies throughout the world. This chapter intends to explore these issues within Africa. It provides the evolving gender roles of women in African ASM communities, the impacts of ASM on women miners and factors exacerbating and mitigating inequities in power, the distribution of wealth, and susceptibility to poverty. Although crushing and grinding of extracted ore can be accomplished using a number of mechanical means such as the stamp mills, when women are engaged in this activity, it is typically a highly manual activity using hammers or a mortar and pestle. Perhaps one of the most interesting determinants of the roles and responsibilities of women involves the type of commodity mined. Health and wellbeing is a result of the complex interplay between factors that include, but are not limited to, income level and disparity, social support networks, education, social environments, personal health practices, healthy child development, health services, gender and culture.
