Friday, May 11, 2012

Women's Views on News

Women's Views on News

Digging deep for women in mining

Posted: 10 May 2012 09:00 AM PDT

Anna Reitman
Freelance journalist

Amid the rocks, equipment and resource estimates at the conferences I attend as a journalist for the mining industry, an interesting booth can be found – Women in Mining UK (WIMUK).

During one of their receptions in London, I met Amanda van Dyke, WIMUK's executive chair. Originally a professional gemmologist in Toronto, Canada, her interest in business eventually landed her with an MBA in Europe, leading to her current role in mining specialist sales at Ocean Equities based in London.

In this interview with WVoN, she talks about the role WIMUK plays in helping women in the mining industry around the world and how journalists can tap into their expertise, her thoughts on the recent government report about women on boards by Lord Davies and how mining companies could do more to address women's rights in rural areas.

WVoN: Can you tell us about the international structure of Women in Mining (WIM)? And how does WIMUK fit in? 

Amanda van Dyke: The biggest groups are in Canada, Australia, South Africa and the UK with smaller groups in Chile and Peru. The first three have robust mining operations, whilst London is more about mining finance and that is reflected in our membership.

We [WIM UK] helped set up WIM South Africa and we share a sponsor – Anglo American. However, in South Africa, they are more concerned about getting women hired in mines, safety in mines, equality in hiring in the actual mines themselves.

A significant proportion of our membership are lawyers, accountants, public relations people and consultants related to mining, as well as professionals engaged in managing the business interests of mining companies headquartered or listed in London, but not necessarily working in actual mines.

Whenever we visit their country or vice versa, WIM groups welcome each other and share our experiences. At the Indaba conference for mining in Cape Town, we invited members of WIM South Africa to our reception and used the opportunity to chat and try to understand the different issues the two groups were dealing with.

WVoN: What kind of international initiatives are you currently pursuing to strengthen those relationships? 

AvD: There are two areas that we are pursuing on an international basis, the first being the appointment of our WIM international liaison, who will keep up with what is going on in all the other major WIM jurisdictions.

The second is that we are commissioning a research report, covering all mining companies listed on major international exchanges to collect information on female employment as there are currently no definitive statistics.

Once completed we will be in a position to know where we are starting from, with regard to how and where women are employed in the industry, which will hopefully help us shape where we are going with our strategy, which is to promote and progress women's development in mining, and to some extent start to give us a benchmark as to how companies perform.

WVoN: What concerns do you find women raise at meetings? 

AvD: In South Africa, they don't have a huge membership base but there is a quota stipulating that 10 per cent of people employed by all companies need to be female and that includes mines.

That quota helps women get hired in South Africa and although there are different concerns in different WIM groups, we all know that mining is a predominantly male industry. It is, we believe, more than 95 per cent male, whether that is at the finance end or at the mine, so just having other women to talk to and chat to – knowing you aren't the only 'girl' so to speak – is an important social and communal network to have.

Providing a network is one of the essential functions of WIM. Men have informal networks that have been set up for over a hundred years, but women are relatively new to the industry and are often left out of those networks that are often a key element of career progression and success.

Networking enables you to learn dynamics within your industry, establish your business contacts, get "plugged in" to your community and accelerate your professional development, by developing knowledge resources on all levels.

The WIM social network for women offers valuable support in terms of looking for jobs, knowing where the industry is at and keeping your name out there. More often than not, women don't have all of those informal networks, so part of what WIM does is provide them. Our tagline is "to promote and progress women's careers in mining'.

When the WIM South Africa and WIMUK group met in Indaba, we talked about the various projects we are on. I would say here in the UK, our issues are getting women into engineering and technical professions and women on boards, getting hired in management positions and up to the board level is a big focus, as highlighted by other organisations such as the 30% club.

WVoN: The promotion of women onto boards in the wake of the Lord Davies report in the UK is certainly a hot topic, is there an official WIM stance? 

AvD: If you look at the FTSE100 [the 100 largest most actively traded companies on the London Stock Exchange], major mining and resource companies are a huge component, yet they have the lowest representation of women on boards across any industry.

I find that shocking. Although as an organisation, we don't support quotas, women in other industries have demonstrated that board diversity makes boards more effective.

The outcome of the Lord Davies report is that all companies are required to report and prove they have initiatives going forward to address inequality and we support that the industry has to slowly but steadily move towards increasing the numbers of women.

It isn't going to happen overnight, and you can't just put someone on a board, it means making sure women have a way to work their way up within organisations, to get to a point where they are qualified to sit on boards and that is a much larger issue than just putting women onto boards.

Helena Morrissey [CEO of Newton Investment Management] runs a group called the 30% Club and WIM (UK) as an organisation supports the methodology they employ for getting women onto boards. They are making positive progress and the very good work they are doing can be applied to the mining industry.

WVoN: City University London is also leading a 30% initiative to encourage broadcast outlets to increase the number of female experts interviewed on TV and radio. Can WIMUK connect journalists with experts in the mining industry? 

AvD:  Absolutely, this is one of the things we aim to facilitate, it can be hard and we do sometimes have issues with confidentiality, etc…but we do have a broad-based membership and increasingly more senior women, and I say that with a bit of pride.

Senior women have already made it and are on the ladder, they don't need organisations like WIM necessarily to promote or progress their careers. But I find that the number of senior women that are willing to not only join our group but also donate their time and expertise to encourage young women in their careers to succeed is impressive.

Journalists can access experts, and through WIMUK, they can ask for an expert in a particular area and we are happy to facilitate where we can to write the email and make the call. Knowing that reporters are trying to diversify the kinds of experts they speak to, usually our membership will get back to you.

WVoN: One of the areas where the mining industry gets bad press is with human rights – how does WIM UK engage with the mining industry on that side of things? 

AvD: We have a number of CSR [corporate social responsibility] consultants and environmental consultants within our membership and a number of our educational development seminars address human rights issues and how to make the mining industry more socially responsible.

Mining companies generally are constantly striving to make that work because it makes good corporate as well as business sense. Though consultants are based here, they often deal with social, environmental issues on site and in-country, helping companies understand how they can best deal with implementing Equator Principles [a credit risk management framework for determining, assessing and managing environmental and social risk in project finance transactions].

The consensus seems to be that for any company starting CSR initiatives, they need to happen years earlier in the mining life cycle than previously thought.

It used to be that companies didn't even start thinking about CSR until they were in production and knew there was going to be a mine. But it seems that the only successful way to have a social license to operate is to start the CSR initiatives at the early planning stages.

We ran a seminar by the World Bank on getting women employed onto mines and the World Bank and the Equator Principles would suggest that getting women involved early in mining is an essential way to find social acceptance because women are often the gateway to the community in rural areas.

Where you don't have women and women's issues addressed in the planning process, you don't have community acceptance and mines don't have a social license to operate.

You need to consider women in the community and make sure some of them are employed and that not just the male leaders of communities are consulted in the planning process because it will save you a world of pain later when things go wrong.

A tale of priests, nuns and paedophilia

Posted: 10 May 2012 07:30 AM PDT

Denise Turner
WVoN co-editor

On Monday the Catholic Primate of Ireland Cardinal Sean Brady issued a public apology to Brendan Boland, a victim of convicted paedophile priest, Father Brendan Smyth.

Boland had reported to the clergy (including Brady) in 1975 that Smyth had been sexually abusing him for two years from the age of 12 but no one  took any action. As a result, many more children were abused.

There are eerie parallels between the situation in which Brady now finds himself and that of Cardinal Bernard Law, who became the first American bishop to resign over a sex abuse scandal.

As this Irish Times article points out, the demand for his resignation grew to such a pitch that Law had to give way despite support from the Vatican.

But that did not spell the end for Law within the church, as his influence remains strong in Vatican circles.

Indeed, he has just been named as the man behind the recent crackdown on the group representing American nuns because of their emphasis on social justice work and their liberal approach to issues like abortion and gay marriage.

The Leadership Conference of Religious Women (LCWR), an umbrella organisation of women’s religious communities in the US, was reprimanded last month for promoting "radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith” and for making public statements disagreeing with the church’s morals.

David Gibson in Religion News says that Law, along with other conservative American churchmen living in Rome was the person “most forcefully supporting” an investigation into the LCWR.

So perhaps Brady should take note – that life as a mover and shaker in the Catholic church is far from over because of a little local difficulty concerning paedophile priests.

There’s still the nuns to attack for being too interested in the poor, the oppressed and the needy.

UK Tory MP hits out at online abuse of women

Posted: 10 May 2012 06:00 AM PDT

Liz Draper
WVoN co-editor

British Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Louise Mensch spoke out last week about the "immoral and misogynistic"  abuse that women in the public eye often experience on social media sites such as Twitter.

Following critical remarks she made over the Commons media committee's charge that Rupert Murdoch was not fit to run a major company, Mensch was bombarded with sexist and sexually abusive tweets.

Some of the tem, which Mensch saved on her favourites page, called her a "whore" or a "bitch".

Others were violent, threatening to strangle her, or "hit her with a hammer" in the face.

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Today Programme, Mensch spoke out against the abuse.

“Abuse directed at women is always sexual or violent," she said. “If somebody is considered attractive, it’s a sexual and violent fantasy levelled against them. If someone is considered unattractive, it’s personal remarks about their body.”

This is not the first time Mensch has faced sexist and intimidating treatment online. In August last year, she was forced to arrange police protection for her family when she received an email threatening her with "Sophie's choice" of having to choose which of her children would die.

Gloucester resident Frank Zimmerman, 60, was convicted last month of sending her "an indecent, offensive, or menacing" email.

Zimmerman denies the charges, claiming that the emails were sent when his computer was hacked. However, at a hearing on Tuesday Judge Martin Brown said that he was confident in the guilty verdict, and told Zimmerman he could fail jail when he is sentenced on June 7th.

Niger named as worst place in world to be a mum

Posted: 10 May 2012 04:30 AM PDT

Jem McCarron
WVoN co-editor

This coming Sunday will see a plethora of clinking plates on trays being carried by small children to nervous mums, hand-picked posies, boxes of chocolates and home-made cards as women in various parts of the world celebrate Mother’s Day.

But as you sit in bed drinking cold coffee and eating burnt toast, it may be worth taking a moment to consider where it’s not a great place to be a mother.

The charity, Save the Children, has released its Annual Mother’s Index which uses data on health, education, political position, children’s well being and economics to compose a list of the best and worst places in the world to be a mother.

But why bother? Save the Children argues that "more than 90 years of field experience have taught us that the quality of children’s lives depends on the health, security and well-being of their mothers."

This year the index cites Niger as the worst place to be a mum, behind Yemen and Afghanistan.

In Niger, an average of one in every 30 women will die from pregnancy-related causes, one in seven children will die before their fifth birthday and just under a third of children suffer from malnutrition.

Women earn less than 40 per cent of the average male wage, which is not surprising since only four girls are enrolled in primary school for every five boys and then they only receive six years of education.

Late and erratic rains have pushed Niger into a food emergency, but even  before this recent crisis 300,000 children were being treated for malnutrition each year – 15% of the worlds total.

At the opposite end of the Index is Norway, just ahead of Iceland and Sweden. The differences are stark.

Girls in Norway on average will spend 18 years in education and live to around 83 years old. Their prospects are good in a country that sets the bar high with 40 per cent of the parliament being female.

The United States is ranked 25th in the world, although this is an improvement on last year, when it was in 31st position.

According to Save the Children a woman in the US is seven times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than a woman in Ireland or Italy. It also has the least favorable environment in the industrialised world for mothers who want to breastfeed.

Perhaps this is a lesson for the looming presidential election battles – that a country can be defined by its treatment of women.

US Democrats introduce bill to protect pregnant workers’ rights

Posted: 10 May 2012 03:00 AM PDT

Liz Draper
WVoN co-editor

A bill designed to protect pregnant women's rights in the workplace was introduced by five Democrats in the US Congress earlier this week.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) would require all employers to make reasonable adjustments to allow pregnant women to continue with their jobs.

Currently pregnant workers are protected by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, which prohibits "sex discrimination on the basis of pregnancy".

However, although many employers are willing to make adjustments during a worker's pregnancy, they are not currently required by law to do so.

The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act, says one of its proposers, will "require an employer to make a reasonable accommodation for pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions, unless this creates an undue hardship on the employer."

The PWFA is modelled on the Americans With Disabilities Act, which requires employers to make adjustments for disabled workers. However, it does not cover pregnant women because pregnancy is not a permanent condition.

In several recent cases, pregnant workers have lost their jobs because employers have refused to make adjustments for them.

Take the Wal-Mart employee who was fired for carrying a water bottle to avoid dehydration. In another, a delivery truck driver was denied "the same light duty routinely offered to other workers with physical limitations", and was instead forced to take unpaid leave.

According to the PWFA's sponsors in the House of Representatives, the bill aims to "clarify the law" to ensure that pregnant workers' rights are fully protected.

The PWFA is being seen by some as a welcome relief from the spate of anti-abortion and anti-contraception laws introduced in Republican states such as Oklahoma and Tennessee.

New campaign launched to stop rape and gender violence in conflict

Posted: 10 May 2012 01:30 AM PDT

Jem McCarron
WVoN co-editor

The first ever global initiative to stop rape and gender violence in conflict was launched earlier this week.

Spearheaded by the Nobel Women’s Initiative,  over 400 organisations from around the world have come together to tackle the problem of gender violence in war torn areas.

The International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict says that rape is increasingly being used as a "strategic weapon to destroy people, communities, and entire nations” and requires bold political leadership if it is ever to end.

The organisers aim to raise awareness, support survivors and put pressure on judicial systems at a local, national and international level to ensure that those responsible are prosecuted for their crimes.

The campaign launch follows on from a meeting last year between 130 women from 30 countries, including Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi and Mairead Maguire "to brainstorm and devise new strategies to end sexual violence as a weapon of war."

Their  report is well worth a read and forms the basis for much of the focus of the new campaign to stop the use of rape as a weapon in conflict situations.

"Violence starts in the mind so we have to start by changing the minds of men and women all over the world. Men, so that they may not think of women as ready victims. And women also, so that they may not think of themselves as helpless victims”, said Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Laureate and honorary member of the group.

Take the pledge to support the campaign and find out about the week of action here.