A hot, dry wind envelopes a statuesque woman as she kneels over wind-sifted trays of tinbearing pulverized ore in Uis, Namibia. In Bolivia, a nine-year old girl scrambles down a steep pit wall yet again to refill her bucket of metal-rich sand. And yet another woman stokes the fire in her wood burning stove in the Philippines, releasing the mercury from doré in a poorly ventilated kitchen; the thick black soot coating the kitchen wall contains more than 15% mercury. Up to her knees in muddy water, a woman pans for gold to supplement the meagre family income in a Malian “orpaillage”. The faces are as varied as these scenarios but there is one commonality–artisanal mining represents an opportunity. To some, participation is driven by the allure of riches; however, for many women, artisanal mining signifies an opportunity to relieve the strains of poverty1.

Artisanal miners2 employ rudimentary techniques for mineral extraction and often operate under hazardous, labour-intensive, highly disorganized and illegal conditions. Despite these factors, artisanal mining is an essential activity in many developing countries, particularly in regions where economic alternatives are critically limited. The International Labour Organization (1999) estimates that the number of artisanal miners is currently around 13 million in 55 countries, which is roughly equivalent to the global workforce of large-scale mining. From this, it has been extrapolated that 80 to 100 million people worldwide are directly and indirectly dependent on this activity for their livelihood. ILO further estimates that artisanal mining