Mining communities suffer from human rights violations: HRC

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The Human Rights Commission (HRC) in Limpopo says there is violation of human rights in mining communities.

The commission says this is due to the lack of coordination between government, mining companies and other stakeholders.

Some of the concerns by the commission include illegal mining activities in Burgersfort in the Sekhukhune district, Lephalale and areas around Mapela villages in the Mogalakwena area amongst others.

Commission chairperson Victor Mavhidula was speaking in Polokwane during the release of the report into mining activities in the province.

“There is an admission that human rights are being violated, there is no denial about that. The only issue is that they didn’t know exactly what they had to do even the coordination of the approach how to deal with this. They didn’t know what to do, for example we are talking about the mushrooming of illegal mines in Burgersfort and all over here but when those people start mining illegally, government officials are aware but they don’t know where to report that. The mining companies are aware but they don’t know what to do, together we can stop this violation because we are talking about the dust, we are talking about the blasting that is cracking our houses.”