Saad Kassis-Mohamed argues that legal literacy is one necessary part of turning formal equality into rights women can understand, reach and use in practice.

Biometric data is a new gold which various countries and corporate entities are seeking to extract profit from and exert control over populations across the world. The High Court of Kenya resisted this new extractivism and ordered the deletion of biometric data of several thousands of Kenyans whose economic difficulties had been exploited to obtain records of their iris.

Women artisanal miners in Tanzania and across Africa reveal gender as a structural location, not merely an identity. Elite “empowerment” and boardroom gains leave grassroots women crushing ore and absorbing care costs. Materialist womanist analysis demands structural accountability beyond representation, formal equality or scandal. Women’s subordinated position in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is no reason to normalise the sector: ASM injures workers, contaminates communities and dumps health costs onto the households that depend on it.