Sheep magazine Archive 2: issues 10-17

JUSTICE: MAYBE?
Justice is long overdue for the widows of South African
mineworkers. It is vital the court of appeal upholds a ruling
that makes South Africa’s gold mining industry accountable to
women whose husbands died from silicosis
From an article by Dean Peacock and Emily Nagisa Keehn
The authors are respectively current and former members of
Sonke Gender Justice
For decades, women in rural South Africa have shouldered the burden of
caring for mineworkers who return home with silicosis contracted in South
Africa’s gold mines. These women do the back-breaking and emotionally
taxing work of caring for men who are dying slow and painful deaths, their
lungs irreparably scarred by the silica dust they breathe in underground.
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Testimony from women in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province reveals
the brutal toll silicosis has taken on families. ‘My husband was the sole
breadwinner,’ recalled one woman. ‘If we had money, he had sent it.
During his last days, he lost his strength and his chest closed up. It was
difficult for him to cover himself with blankets, so I would cover him up.
He could not go outside to relieve himself, so he would do it right there in
the bed. I would have to throw it away. On his last day his chest closed up
completely. I am left with almost nothing.’
NOVEMBER 2016