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Golden Poverty: Migori miners trading gold for sex

City News
gold in migori    A gold mining site in Nyatike    Photo: Peter Orengo

It is ‘money come, money go’ for residents of Nyatike in Migori, who ironically live in extreme poverty and on the fast lane, despite sitting on one of the country’s largest gold deposits.

In nearly all homesteads, you’ll find huge mounds of earth, makeshift caves and mines, proof of the local people’s hit-or-miss search for the precious metal.

However, there is little to show for the tonnes of gold that have been mined over the decades, dating back to the beginning of the last century.

“Most residents’ lives rotate around gold mining, but the way they live does not reflect the riches they get. Most of the miners are school dropouts. Without anyone to advise them on investment opportunities, they plunder whatever they get on booze and women,” says Roselydia Akinyi, a social worker in Masara town, one of the mining hotspots in Migori.

It is said the miners disappear to Masara and the nearby towns as soon as they get paid, only to reappear a week later with empty pockets.

Most make as much as Sh80,000 a week, which is spent on alcohol and women in a flash.

For a new comer, Masara town, which boasts of over 100 buildings, passes as any ordinary country township, until nightfall, when the tiny town bursts into a vibrant night life.

“Here, prostitution takes centre-stage in the evenings and the situation gets worse during the ‘high season’ that coincides with the long rains. The lure of gold is so powerful that sex workers come from as far as Uganda and Tanzania. The town has five bars, which are always full of patrons in the evenings. The patrons are said to prefer light-skinned women, and are even ready to part with as much as Sh20,000 for a night with the seasoned wenches who bleach themselves ‘white’” says Oketch Rabala, 50, a leader of a local mining group, who adds that life in the area has always been like this since he was born.

In the town, the ‘yellow-skinned’ girls are referred to in dholuo as ‘wasungu ma Masaria’ (Masaria’s white girls). Some of the women are known to have lucrative investments from the spoils of the gold cash.

“Patrons are known to pay really well, especially if the girl is new,” add Rabala.

“Life in the entire area revolves purely around gold, but people remain poor. Sometimes, two or three men can compete for a single girl. The one whose bid is highest gets the girl. This can be as high as Sh30,000 for a night,” he adds.

Rabala says they use mercury to separate gold from the rocks that are mined 100 feet below the ground fetches only 30 percent of gold, leaving the rest as debris. The miners are usually paid on the spot by middlemen, mostly from Nairobi and other towns.

Always go back to the mines

On a good day, one can make as much as Sh10, 000. But you can also go home empty-handed.

“Life has always been like this here. One day you are rich, the next day you are as poor as a church mouse. Most of them live in grass-thatched houses, while the middlemen live in permanent ones and drive big cars,” Akinyi says.

She attributes the reckless behaviour to the miners’ belief that they will always go back to the mines and make more money.

The situation has led to high HIV/Aids prevalence in the mines, a trend Akinyi says is worrying as most of the affected people are youths who depend heavily on the mines. “The latest data from the health ministry shows that the region has a 27 percent HIV/Aids prevalence rate, against the national figure of six per cent,” said Akinyi, who works for Kared Fod Women Development Program (Kawodep), an organisation started as a women’s community-based organisation to act as a mouthpiece for women and children’s rights, as well as protect the girl child in Migori.

“According to our data, eight out of every 10 people in the town are HIV positive. The most affected are the miners. It is for these reasons that we decided to offer them psycho-social support, and even advise them to look for alternative jobs,” says Akinyi.

She says that children usually drop out of school and start mining from as early as 12 years, while girls are forced into sex trade soon after completing primary education.

The area has only one dispensary, yet the number of those seeking medical services has grown, due to new HIV cases.

With funds donated by Kenya Community Development Foundation, the group decided to put up another dispensary at Ogongo village, a remote area where the nearest hospital, Nyatike, is 30 kilometres away.

Migori Minister of Health Iscar Oluoth told The Nairobian that the county has put in place elaborate plans to reverse the HIV threat in the area.

“We are aware and concerned about how gold mining is fuelling HIV in Nyatike. The government, therefore, has allocated Sh600 million towards awareness campaigns, circumcision and protection of child exploitation in the mines,” said Oluoch.

 

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