Female ‘zama zamas’ trained as artisans
A PHD student is using unconventional methods to help female “zama zamas” start co-operatives and build a thriving industry in the diamond belt of Kimberley, Northern Cape.
Michelle Goliath from Free State University has been working with at least 3 000 illegal diamond miners, known as “zama zamas”, over the past three years.
The all-female zama zamas are entering the formal mining trade after receiving training as artisans through an agreement with mining companies.
The zama zama world is dominated by men, some of whom operate in groups in an environment characterised by violence.
“My research includes the ‘Zamaism’ psychology, a philosophy which looks at the contestation of space and rules, how people navigate the illegal when they are faced with desperate choices. I chose to work with women because they are the worst marginalised in society. They work hard to look after and feed their families. Training a woman is actually training a nation,” said Goliath.
Illegal miners are not criminals, but ordinary people trying to survive and escape poverty, she said.
“Government doesn’t want to recognise the problems that come with criminalising zama zamas. No one seems to want to analyse this deeply, and consider issues such as migration that built this country’s mining industry… it’s like a diamond rush.”
Months of negotiations between the Department of Minerals Resources, the local municipality and a mining company saw the establishment of an artisanal diamond process owned and operated by women in 2016. The Batho Pele Primary Mining Co-operative and later Artisanal Scale Mining have already signed agreements with Canada and the US for the export of fair-trade-certified gem products.
One of the women in the group, and now an artisan, is Elisa Louw, a former domestic worker from Kimberley’s Galeshewe township. She grew up on a farm in Free State.
Louw did not complete her primary school education and ended up as a domestic worker for years. She left her last job allegedly due to ill-treatment and started hawking. She became a zama zama in 2013.
In 2014, she found her first 75-pointer diamond, which she sold for R1 500 on the black market. “The black market was good then,” she said.
After Goliath’s assistance in starting the co-operatives, Louw recruited other women to join soon after permits were granted in 2017.
“People called us names such as terrorists and robbers. But in a meeting (with the SAPS, the Department of Mineral Resources, the Sol Plaatje Municipality, and the international Swedish Housing Company), Michelle Goliath spoke for us,” said Louw.
“She helped us to obtain our legal permit to mine. It was such a relief when we received the permit. I could go home and sleep without worrying about the safety of the old people and children who are mining. The permit changed my life as a woman.”
The journey with the women of Kimberley was tough, said Goliath.
“In a way, you become a zama zama at heart once you live with people who fight for economic inclusion every day. You fight the illegal diamond trade that exploited people as digging slaves. You fight formal mining, which is a difficult sector to enter as a woman. You literally fight others with stones for territory. You fight political fights, land fights… the system at every level, to seek an existence.”