Debbie Prasad, MAAPPS // March 15, 2015
The Mongolian President recently took part in celebrating Women’s Day last week. The celebrations involved calling representatives of thousands of mothers and girls in Mongolia and honouring them with special badges. The President also spoke about the various problems that faced women in Mongolian society.
I have not been able to access what details were entailed in the speech, but I am hopeful that the lack of women’s representation in the extractive industry was seen as an issue that needed to be addressed.
For the past few weeks, I have been getting to learn a lot about Mongolian society including their shared identity of idolizing Ghenghis Khan, their predominantly meat and dairy heavy foods, and also their extremely high literacy rate. I have been doing a little digging of my own and wanted to see what women’s roles in society and mining were and I came across a World Bank report that stated that only 5-10 percent of the extractive industry sector were female, and that they were primarily in service support roles. The Mongolia 2008 labour regulations limited women’s participation in the extractive sector, which led to promoting women towards “easier” jobs. Which were not really to be found in mining.
Mining constitutes approximately 18% of Mongolia’s GDP, and just under 10% of the labour force is employed in the extractive industry, while 33% of the labour force are employed in agriculture and 55% are employed in the service industry. In addition to this, there is a projected labour shortage in the extractive industry, while there is a mining boom.
Now, to put all this together, and get to my point! One purpose of having the EITI in Mongolia was to increase transparency. In order to do this, civil society needs to be given to tools to hold companies and the government accountable for their actions. One way in which society can be able to hold parties responsible is by being more involved and aware of the activities- and what better way to be aware of activities than by actually being employed in the industry? It seems that the numbers are not just a little low for everyone’s employment in the mining labour force, but this is even more so for women. One little way that transparency and interest in mining can further increase in Mongolia is by having more of their own citizens involved in the extractive labour force. I agree that so far, mining has been discriminating against women not just in Mongolia, but this happens all over the world, and so it is not my intention to single Mongolia out. But why not look for solutions that can benefit everyone?
In the case of Mongolia, one possible solution to the upcoming labour shortage can be to involve more women in the industry. The education and infrastructure is already present in Mongolia with respect to mining, all that needs to happen is to encourage and involve more of the women. Possibly, this involvement will help to increase awareness interest in mining in Mongolia, and as a result, lead to increased gender equality.
Sources:
“Mongolia: Raising Female Participation in the Large Scale Mining Sector” World Bank, 2013
“Government Authorities Praise the International Women’s Day” http://www.infomongolia.com/ct/ci/8991
“Best Honored Mothers Have Been Awarded” http://www.infomongolia.com/ct/ci/3473