A new dirt road snakes through the evolving hills of Buhweju district across the ochre-red earth.
The climate here is cool and occasionally a rain may pound the grounds to disrupt the serenity of this landscape.
To the farmers, it is harvest time as they carry their produce to the markets.
Here, it is commonplace to find women and children engaged in hard labour to provide for their families.
This group of women and children eke a living by crashing these rocks into stones
One of the poorest areas in Ankole sub-region, Buhweju is endowed with minerals. The area MP, Francis Mwijukye, borrows popular parlance to refer to it as ‘the Karamoja of Ankole.’ Karamoja, a semi-arid area is perhaps the poorest sub-region in Uganda.
In every pocket of Buhweju district, there lies a gold mine. Yet there is little to show of this mineral wealth as social services lie in ruin.

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At this vast wasteland, in Katenga village, women toil from dawn to dusk to earn household income to fend for their families.
With shovels in their hands, they cut across hills of rock to fill their basins and improvised jerry-cans.
In the desolate lands where gold is buried, they straddle these giant pits on barefoot to carry the flecks of these precious stones.
Painfully, they navigate these trips from the bottom to the top. It is a balancing act, which requires skill

Beads of sweat drip down the face of this woman. Yet she must remain unwavering if the family is to have a meal.
Each one of these women is paid a paltry shs 100 for the basin of rocks they carry from the pit.
They have to make several routes to earn a small fee.
With bare hands, they have no protective gear and so are their male counterparts
It is difficult to fathom that without the exploitation of these rural women, these precious stones that fetch staggering prices may not reach the department stores

The Daily Monitor could not speak to these women because we feared that this could place their employment in jeopardy.

But their leaders offered to speak on behalf of those affected.

Florence Kasende, the chairperson for Buhweju women miners association, reveals that “We have been in these mines for some time. We don’t have protective gear and that is the challenges. The pit can also fall on you and the chemicals can affect us.”
Her deputy told The Daily Monitor that, “The problems we have among others are women have no boots and chemicals affect their legs. The women are paid poorly and there is no food and they looked tired. They travel here at dawn from their homes and they work till dusk. They have to walk back to their homes in the evening.”

Across this expanse, are hounds, which guard the pits. They are ready to strike if anyone steals gold.

The manager Godfrey Kilomba here says whereas he could improve conditions, he has helped to offer employment to these women.

“They are paid according to what they do. I start from shs 15,000 shs 20,000 to shs 25,000 on a daily basis. Like those guys in the pit who collect the sand, which we crush, those earn shs 25,000s because they are using a lot of energy. These women you have seen we pay them shs 10,000 on a daily basis,” reveals Kilomba.

Exploitation is not only in the mines but other enterprises like tea. We have a district labour officer to ensure that children, first of all, are not exploited the same applies to women.
You realise they [women] are in the mines for 24 hours, a month, their families are collapsing, their children have left school. So there is a lot of exploitation. There is a need for government, district local government to sensitise these women especially on how much they should be paid and what they can invest in,” reveals the Buhweju district chairperson, Juvenal Asiimwe.

Caroline Nakajjubi Amena of Global Rights Alert, a watchdog organisation told The Daily Monitor that, “The working conditions of women in gold mines is alarming. The issues range from unfair payments that are not adequate and do not come on time and the fact that they are exposed to chemicals as they work. Most of the women do petty work of gold washing and they come in contact with chemicals. The working condition is completely unsafe.”

She also revealed that there are cases of domestic violence. “Women go back home and they are beaten. Men do not think that women should be in gold mines because of the cultural norms and a woman is seen as a menace. The man beats you and takes your money,” she reveals.
Global Rights Alert has sensitised the women on the right to a safe working environment and has tried to educate women on the right to occupation health safety and to work with protective gear among others.

Not far away from here is another gold mine. The roaring sound of mortars filters through the hills of this landscape
Women at this site offer cheap labour. Here, they collect the gold dust, which will later be carefully sifted
It is time for a meal as they take a break ahead of the day. Like their counterparts, there is a risk at some of these mining sites

This man lost his relative, Grace Bonabana at one of the mines when a heap of soil caved in.
He took us to a place where this woman was buried in a banana plantation.
She left behind orphans who live in a mud and wattle home.

Whereas many would expect better social services, Buhweju remains a basket case.
There are hardly any good schools, roads and hospitals. This is a concern, which is shared by the district chairperson, Juvenal Asiimwe and area MP, Francis Mwijukye.

“Buhweju is gifted by nature. To find that one of the most endowed districts is one of the poorest, is a paradox. This gold and other minerals are not benefiting the people of Buhweju but those who come exploit and go. Even when they are doing they use primitive means. You saw women with bare hands. The health hazards emanating from this-------. The people are not only being cheated but exploited,” says Mwijukye.

“The locals are cheated by middlemen. They don’t know the actual value of gold. Gold is one of the biggest resources God gave us. Local revenue generation is the technical function of the CAO we as political leaders can only guide. We have not been able to collect tax from there,” says Asiimwe.

Even as investors including Chinese eye lucrative mining deals in the district, there is fear that Buhweju is up for grabs and as the treasures buried in these lands are spirited away, all that will remain is environmental destruction and a people at the mercy of their masters.
As the space for artisanal miners in Uganda, gradually shrinks, in 2017, a Chinese company, Hubei Jiu Zhou Geological Exploration Company Limited, sued artisanal miners in Buhweju for encroaching on its gold site. In a suit that Hubei has filed, the company says nearly 10,000 artisanal gold miners are operating illegally on its site, and, therefore wants them evicted.

“We have a case where the Chinese took the people of Buhweju to court. That people of Buhweju are mining Chinese Gold. As a member of Parliament, I am disturbed that somebody goes to Kampala, picks a licence without consulting the local authority here without consulting some of us, and you come and start taking away gold. As if that is not bad enough, you even expose the life of our people to what you have just seen,” opines Mwijukye.
You find somebody with a licence and trying to displace people. The Chinese came and acquired a licence but they found it rough because the people resisted. We have been engaging government to overhaul the legal regime and involve local leadership in licensing. You can’t just displace people who are putting something on the table,” Asiimwe told The Daily Monitor.

Uganda lost more than Shs 10 billion in royalties from undeclared gold trade last year.
According to the auditor general's report for 2016 – 2017 financial year, only 16kgs in gold exports were authorised while Uganda Revenue Authority records showed that more than 8,000kgs were actually exported.
Yet those who care about the dark web of this trade and rip off the fortunes have little to care about the plight of the people of Buhweju.