Chronicle Editor
Thandeka Moyo-Ndlovu, Senior Health Reporter
WOMEN who pick waste for recycling at Bulawayo’s Richmond dumpsite popularly known as Ngozi Mine, have bemoaned alarming levels of violence and urged responsible authorities to create a safe and conducive working environment.
Waste pickers are critical players in the management and waste circular economies and in Bulawayo they are helping to clear tonnes of waste daily which is then recycled.
Many people are fending for their families from money earned from selling waste to recycling companies.
In a statement after the waste pickers conference in Bulawayo yesterday, the Matabeleland Institute of Human Rights co-ordinator who was facilitating the conference, Mr Khumbulani Maphosa said female waste pickers have been exposed to a form of violence perpetrated by their male counterparts and Bulawayo City Council (BCC) workers.
“For female waste pickers operating at Ngozi Mine dumpsite, physical, verbal, emotional and gender-based violence is the order of the day. The perpetrators are male waste pickers and council employees.
“In some cases, boys waylay trucks carrying waste from the main road, ride the truck and prevent other people from collecting waste from the same trucks,” he said.
Mr Maphosa said elderly women are regularly insulted and told to go and practice witchcraft in the rural areas.
“Some female waste pickers have been robbed of their money and in some cases their waste pickings,” he said..
Mr Maphosa said operating hours also disadvantaged female waste pickers as some trucks come to the dumpsite at night and most women cannot work at night.
“The dumpsite has no operating hours and as such some men work at the dumpsite at night taking advantage of the trucks that deliver waste at night. Pickers at Ngozi Mine lamented that there are no control measures which were there in the early 2000s when the local authority was strict in terms of picking times,” he said.
Mr Maphosa said women cannot work at night as they risk being raped or their waste being stolen.
Waste pickers operating from the city centre, low and high-density suburbs complained of rampant harassment by BCC workers. -@thamamoe
derick.khumalo