Climate Change, Critical Minerals, Human Rights and Accountability in Extractive Industries in Southern Africa

Under its growing portfolio of work on critical minerals, SARW is implementing this project, whose purpose is to protect the human rights of women artisanal miners in the DRC and mineworkers in DRC and Zimbabwe involved in the extraction of cobalt and lithium. The project will continuously collect cases of human rights violations involving women and artisanal girl miners related to these strategic minerals in DRC and Zimbabwe. Comprehensive and detailed reports on human rights violations against women and girls will be published. The project will also train women and girls working in ASM in Lualaba Province on the country’s mining legislation and women’s leadership. The project will work with women’s cooperatives. To do this, SARW will collaborate with women-led mining cooperatives. Overall, the project seeks to monitor and evaluate the accountability of companies and the state in the procurement, extraction, and use of critical minerals and to assess the extent to which they are improving the socio-economic conditions of the communities in the region without harming them. Ultimately, the project seeks to increase the promotion and protection of the rights of women miners and influence change in government policies because of various reports on the human rights of miners that will be profiled under the project.