Launch |Guns, Power & Politics Resources Extractives and Violence Against Women – Feminist Journeys of Trauma Support and Solidarity – Papers
As part of International Women’s Month and Wangari Maathai Day, WoMin is proud to present two new critical resources:
An analysis paper titled, Extractives and Violence Against Women, that grapples with the violence women experience as a result of mining and extractives across Africa.
Download in French, Portuguese, English
Guns, Power, Politics in Extractives Industries: Building Women’s Collective Power through Trauma Support, a tool that celebrates CSU (Counselling Services Unit) and WoMin’s inspiring work with women affected by violence in mining communities in Zimbabwe. A years-long process that centres women’s experiences and voices as they navigate through trauma support journeys and weave collective responses and coping strategies in the face of the violences caused by extractives-driven ‘development’.
Download in French, Portuguese, English
“African women in general need to know that it’s okay for them to be the way they are as a strength, and to be liberated from fear and from silence.” – Wangari Maathai
Background
The analytical paper grew out of WoMin’s analysis of violence that happens within the extractives sector and how women are impacted. Mining and extractives are based on production for profit and exploits nature and people. It destroys whole ecosystems of water bodies, forests, and land as well as the livelihoods of communities, who are often removed by force from the lands and resources they depend on for their survival. This form of “development” also exploits the labour of workers including women’s labour and women’s bodies.
Over the years, WoMin has worked with partners to build processes that centre the experiences of women living in communities where violence is playing out in multiple ways due to the extractivist “development” model and support their collective healing, care, and solidarity. The feminist collective model of trauma support paper offers a synopsis of a journey that WoMin undertook together with the Counselling Services Unit aimed at supporting the healing journey of 18 women from mining impacted communities in Zimbabwe.
Access more Guns, Power & Politics resources here.
