Rice, sapphires and cattle: Work lives of women artisanal and small-scale miners in Madagascar

Strong global demand for coloured gemstones,1 particularly in India and China, has led to a phenomenal expansion of the market in recent years (KPMG 2014). Levin (2012) suggests that globally, 80 per cent of gemstones are mined artisanally. In Africa, with the notable exception of Gemfields, a London-listed large-scale miner of gemstones in Zambia and Mozambique, most of the mining of coloured gemstones is poorly regulated and conducted by artisans using hand tools. Artisanal mining of gold has been widely investigated, but that of coloured gemstones has received comparatively less attention. The role of women in gemstone mining has received even less.