By Boitumelo (Tumi) Nkomo, Minerals Council Women in Mining Programme Manager
The story of women in South Africa’s mining sector is one of determined progress, but also of unfinished transformation. From the perspective of the Minerals Council South Africa’s Women in Mining (WiM) programme, the journey has never been only about increasing numbers. It has always been about changing systems, workplace cultures and leadership pathways so that women can enter the industry, remain in it, progress and thrive within it, delivering a positive impact.
Minerals Council Women in Mining Programme Manager, Boitumelo Nkomo.
Supplied by Minerals Council South Africa
This is why the revised WiM strategy matters. It reflects the lessons of the last few years, sharpens focus where change needs to be fast-tracked, and strengthens collective accountability across the sector.
Since the WiM strategy was first introduced in 2020, it has provided a structured platform for Minerals Council member companies to move beyond intention and towards practical action. The original strategy set stretch targets for women’s representation across the mining sector and in management. The review and refresh of the strategy, completed in 2025, was an important step in ensuring that the programme remained relevant to the realities women continue to face in mining workplaces.
The revised strategy narrowed and strengthened its focus around key pillars such as safe, equitable and dignified workplaces, collaboration across the sector, transformation in the mining value chain and broader societal impact, all of which are underpinned by a Visible Felt leadership commitment to driving change.
This shift was important because experience showed that policy statements alone do not transform an industry; deliberate action, measurement and leadership commitment do. This insight was echoed in the recently conducted Industry-wide Pulse Survey, which revealed that on the whole, the requisite policies were in place, but a more concerted effort was still required to deliver tangible changes on employees’ lived experiences.
There are clear signs that these interventions are gaining traction. Industry data shared through the Minerals Council and related reporting has shown a steady rise in the representation of women in mining, from low double digits earlier in the decade to more than one fifth of the workforce by the end of 2025.
This growth is significant in a sector that excluded women from underground work for much of its 140-year history until 1996, when South Africa adopted its new Constitution. The sector still bears the imprint of deeply gendered occupational structures. The gains are also visible in the stronger visibility of women in technical disciplines, in the growing focus on mentorship and sponsorship, and in deliberate investments in education and development by mining companies.
Campaigns such as the annual WiM Heroes initiative evidences the manifold ways in which women significantly contribute to growth, innovation and sustainability of the South African mining sector. In 2025, the WiM Heroes campaign focused on the area of Education and Development, illustrating how women have helped to elevate the importance of training, coaching, mentoring and recognition as part of long-term transformation rather than as stand-alone gestures in their respective organisations and mining communities.
Another important gain has been the growing recognition that inclusion is not achieved simply by bringing more women into mining operations. The environment itself must change. Across member companies, attention has increasingly turned to issues that were long treated as secondary but are in fact foundational:
- Access to women-appropriate personal protective equipment.
- Changing facilities and infrastructure designed with women in mind.
- The establishment of lactation facilities for nursing mothers.
- Gender-sensitive policies.
- Stronger zero-tolerance approaches to gender-based violence, bullying and harassment.
These are not peripheral concerns. They shape whether women experience mining as a profession with dignity and possibility, that welcomes their whole selves, or as a space in which they must constantly adapt to systems never designed for them.
The Minerals Council WiM programme is clear about the work which still remains ahead. Representation gains, while meaningful, do not automatically translate into equity. One of the most persistent challenges is retention. Women may enter the sector in greater numbers, but too many still leave because of hostile or isolating workplace cultures, limited career progression, lack of visible role models and the practical difficulties of balancing work and family responsibilities, particularly in remote mining communities.
In many operations, women remain concentrated in certain functions while core mining and senior leadership roles are slower to diversify. This means that the pipeline into executive and operational decision-making remains narrower than it should be.
The challenge is not only organisational; it is also social and historical. Mining remains a male-dominated industry shaped by longstanding assumptions about authority, physical work and who belongs underground or at the top table, and whose voice is heard when decisions are made.
These attitudes can surface in subtle biases, resistance to female leadership, exclusion from informal networks and the burden placed on women to repeatedly prove themselves.
At the same time, the wider social crisis of gender-based violence in South Africa cannot be separated from workplace experience. Women’s safety has also been included in the Minerals Council’s Khumbul’ekhaya 2.0 Strategy, echoing the International Labour Organisation’s assertions that women’s health and safety are central to ensuring Zero Harm.
The sector has rightly recognised that the safety of women in mining must be addressed both inside and outside the mine gate. Partnerships that support survivor care, awareness and prevention are therefore part of transformation, not separate from it.
This is where the revised WiM strategy is particularly important. It recognises that progress depends on moving from fragmented initiatives to integrated change. Attraction, retention and development must work together. It is not enough to recruit young women into mining if workplaces do not support their growth. It is not enough to celebrate women leaders if there is no deliberate succession pipeline behind them. And it is not enough to publish commitments if companies are not measuring culture, accountability and outcomes with the same seriousness applied to production targets. The revised strategy therefore places renewed emphasis on leadership ownership, practical implementation and collaboration across the ecosystem, including procurement, education, community engagement and partnerships that broaden women’s economic participation in mining.
From the Minerals Council WiM programme perspective, the message is both hopeful and demanding. South African mining has moved beyond the point where women’s inclusion can be discussed as a peripheral issue. It is now recognised as central to modernising the sector, strengthening talent pipelines, improving culture and building a more sustainable industry. The traction achieved so far shows that change is possible when companies act collectively and with intent. But the distance between progress and parity remains considerable. The next phase of transformation requires courage, consistency and a willingness to confront legacy barriers that are cultural as much as structural. The revised strategy gives the industry a stronger framework to do exactly that. The task now is to translate momentum into permanence, so that women do not merely participate in mining, but to jointly share in leading and shaping its future.