ALTERNATIVE 1

You call the mine to a meeting to discuss women’s participation and inclusion. Dialogues with the company goes well, and they agree that more efforts are needed if they are to uphold their commitment to respecting human rights since women’s rights are at risk if they are excluded.

Special sessions are held that are women-only. Many new issues and concerns are brought forward to the authorities and the mining company that had not been heard in earlier stakeholder meetings.

The women describe how their household duties are heavily dependent on natural resources and thus affected in different ways than men’s, and how worried they are of them being impacted negatively from the mine’s activities. Some also say that their husbands are in control of all household funds, and that the women are not getting their fair share of financial compensation due to this. Some have problems with property and ownership rights during the resettlement due to being women since cultural norms coupled with national legislation tend to favour men as land owners.

A gender expert from a local NGO and two consultants on resettlements and community development have also been invited to the talks. These bring up other risks for women that are associated to large-scale extractive projects like mining.

They warn that the mine is likely to bring societal impacts like increased alcoholism, cultural backlashes and rapidly changing demography. These impacts tend to in turn lead to higher levels of gender-based violence, harassments and sexual assault in the surrounding communities.

The mining company adheres to the advice and concerns given from the stakeholder meetings and incorporates these into a new Human Rights due diligence process under which the mine will continue its activities. Furthermore, a special complaint system, a grievance mechanism, is established, which will help to ensure that the company does not contribute to human rights abuses.

The relationship between the community and the mining company is good, but the stakeholder engagement process has taken three months longer than planned. The resettlement process of the first village community is commenced.