End to gender inequality in mining sector sought

MANILA, Philippines — Environment Secretary Maria Antonio Yulo-Loyzaga wants to end gender inequality in the mining sector as she pushes for more women’s representation in the industry.

“There’s a need to ensure that women’s representation in the mining industry is both meaningful and substantive in all levels of decision-making,” Yulo-Loyzaga said yesterday.

Yulo-Loyzaga cited a 2020 study commissioned by the Philippine-Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), which listed key issues women face in the mining industry, including gender-inequalities in the workplace, challenges they face as a result of environmental problems due to mining operations, lack of livelihood outside employment by mining firms, and absence of guidelines on the inclusion of gender-responsive projects in the Social Development and Management Programs (SDMP).

“We hope that this will include the upscaling, strengthening STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education to motivate women to pursue careers that are very important and related to the industry,” Yulo-Loyzaga said.

Yulo-Loyzaga added that an SDMP, as required by the Philippine Mining Act, lays down the comprehensive five-year plan of a mining firm on how it would conduct its actual mining and milling operations toward the sustained improvement in the living standards of the host and neighboring communities.

“Women constitute the minority in the sector’s workplace and only a few of them occupy technical and leadership positions,” she said.

Yulo-Loyzaga also noted that women are most affected by degradations linked to mining operations, such as pollution of rivers and drying up of water sources.

The EITI-commissioned study likewise said that there are gaps in the implementation of policies to address gender dimensions in the mining industry.

She also pushed for the amendments of the Philippine Mining Act of 1995.

“We will be looking at this in tandem with the Magna Carta for Women. Women should be recognized not because they are women, but for the merit that they bring to the purpose of their organizations. We cannot just rest on our laurels and say we need to be recognized. We must be women of substance, women of purpose, and women of achievement,” Yulo-Loyzaga added.