On International Women’s Day we celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women.
The origin of the day go back to the universal suffrage movement and the first Women’s Day was organised in 1909 in the USA, with the UN officially recognising it in 1975.
Whilst more than 110 years have past since the first movement towards an International Women’s Day we are still far from achieving gender equality. Of course, a lot has improved in the last century but we also need to recognise that the recent COVID-19 pandemic has brought the issues around gender inequality even more to the forefront and that a lot more has to be done to support women.
The theme of this year’s International Women’s Day is ‘Gender equality today for a more sustainable tomorrow’ with a focus on how women can break the bias.
As Kofi Annan, Former Secretary-General of the United Nations said: “Gender equality is more than a goal in itself. It is a precondition for meeting the challenge of reducing poverty, promoting sustainable development and building good governance”.
Gender Equality is of course one of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals and today we have launched a new update on Gold Mining’s Contribution to SDG5.
Mining has historically been male dominated and that is still the case with only an average of 5-10 percent of women working in the sector. Our research into our Members' workforce last year showed that our Members employed around 17% of women. Whilst this is still too low it shows that progress is being made and things are starting to change. Our members are putting efforts into ensuring that the gold mining sector is attracting and retaining female talent – all the way from mine to market.
Through our partnership with Women in Mining UK, we were able to have two interns last summer, with one of them, Hannah Matheson, staying on until now. A trained mining engineer, Hannah will go off to Australia next month to fulfil her dream of working on a mine. She was keen to speak to women in the industry to better understand what their journeys have been like in the sector, the challenges they faced and what has been most rewarding.
In this interview series Hannah speaks to women working for our member companies from a Site Manager to a VP of Health and Sustainability to a Metallurgist. They give advice to Hannah and young women like her wanting to enter the sector. Please have a look and hear from these inspirational women in mining first hand.
As we celebrate women in the gold mining sector, I encourage you to follow our Twitter and LinkedIn page as we well as our Members’ as we will all be highlighting the many inspirational women working for our sector.
