South Africa: Unpolished gems

During apartheid the mining industry was the biggest employer and the main generator of the country's wealth. It was also the central pillar for the structures of racial discrimination. Today a whole raft of progressive labour laws has given workers rights they could not have dreamt of before 1994. However now as before, in this dangerous occupation, miners continue to pay with their lives in order to multiply the profits of large multinational companies. Like in other sectors of the South African economy, workers in the mining industry are reeling from the hardship and suffering caused by the steady haemorrhaging of jobs and the toll of HIV/AIDS.