Women, Mining, and Community Rights: Strengthening Women’s Leadership

Let's commemorate International Women's Month together by learning how to protect the rights of women in mining host communities and secure their place in decision-making that impacts their lives.

A major impact that mining host communities suffer is how extractive activities deepen inequality. While the challenges of mining governance - from environmental degradation to land displacement - affect entire communities, women and girls often bear distinct and disproportionate multilayered burdens.

Meet Agnes

Agnes lives in Ankpa, a mining host community in Kogi State, Nigeria. Prior to mining in her community, Agnes was a farmer who engaged in subsistence farming on her husband’s extended family land. She also fished to meet the nutritional needs of her family. The burden of breadwinning and caregiving for her family fell squarely on her because of her husband’s disabilities.

As mining operations expanded in her community, Agnes lost access to the clean water sources she relies on for her family's health and the fertile land that provided her livelihood. When the land was acquired for mining, she did not get relocated or compensated. The river also became polluted and the fishes died. Life is harder - insecurity is rife, and a localized inflation took over the most basic commodities and services in the community. Every impact seemed to deepen her poverty and worsen her family’s health.

Yet, when the time came for compensation negotiations or Community Development Agreement (CDA) processes, she was not represented at the table, her voice was silenced by systemic exclusion. Agnes is also worried about how mining is worsening the effect of climate change in her community and about the new wave of “critical mineral mining" that is threatening to bring even more mining projects to her state.

Agnes is not alone. This is the reality for many women in mining host communities across Nigeria: increased unpaid care burdens, heightened vulnerability to gender-based violence, and a glaring lack of participation in the decisions that shape their futures.

Putting Women at the Forefront

In commemoration of International Women's Month, our second training webinar in the Protecting Mining Host Communities Rights series is dedicated to changing this narrative. We believe that for mining to be truly sustainable and just, women must be active participants and leaders in shaping the policies and practices that affect their lives.

Despite current barriers, women remain significantly underrepresented in environmental monitoring, Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC) engagements, and leadership roles within their communities. This session will explore practical strategies to ensure women’s rights are protected and their leadership is amplified.

This Training will address:

• Gendered Impacts of Mining: Understanding the unique challenges faced by women and identifying targeted strategies to address them.
• Women’s Land and Natural Resource Rights: Navigating the barriers under customary systems and leveraging statutory protections to secure land tenure.
• Inclusive Decision-Making: Implementing FPIC processes that truly reflect women’s voices and priorities.
• Strengthening Leadership: Building women’s collective organizing power and fostering intergenerational participation in community governance.

We invite you to join us on this learning journey of ensuring that the rights of those most vulnerable are not just recognized on paper but protected in practice.

Together, we can ensure that mining host communities are places of equity, where every voice - including those of women -is heard and valued.