Women group develops mobile app to tackle sexual abuse in mining sites

A non-governmental organization, Women In Mining in Nigeria (WIMlN), has developed a mobile application with which incidences of gender and child rights abuses at mining host communities can be streamed live and reported.

The president and founder of WIMIN, Engineer Janet Adeyemi, disclosed this during a three-day capacity building in Bauchi State, to address human rights abuses against women miners, lamenting that women miners are being raped by labourers and staff of mining companies in several mining sites across the country.

Adeyemi said the mobile app will be dynamic and incorporate other features of offline reporting, reporting by proxy, and anonymous reporting among others. 

“We are setting up a toll-free hotline to entertain reports of gender and child rights violations in mining host communities for immediate and rapid response,” she also stated.

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Adeyemi noted that the training is to safeguard the rights of women and children in the solid minerals sector adding that over 1000 have been trained, 

Adeyemi also berated some mining companies for unlawfully engaging children who should not be exposed to the mining environment but be in school, adding, “the children are over laboured by mining companies and their wages are given to their mothers who are equally on the mining site.”

Bauchi State is richly endowed with mineral resources including feldspar, marble, kaolin, granite, tin, columbite, gemstones and others. Hence it is expected that mining activities in the state will be a prominent feature, and wherever mining is done, you find women and children there,” she said.