Illegal mining | Artisanal miners against zama zamas

JOHANNESBURG - Illegal mining is entrenched in South Africa and the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mineral Resources says it has become a national security issue.

READ: Zama zamas on the rise as mining houses shut down

Artisanal miners say they too are suffering as a result of zamas zamas.

Kgothatso Nhlengetwa from the National Association of Artisanal Miners said, "what we are doing as an organisation is, we are using suggestions from the policies."

"So, the policy says that any mining permits given to an artisanal miner must be done so in the form of a cooperative."

"We are currently formalizing our artisanal miners and they are forming cooperatives."

"In about four provinces we've got artisanal miners that have legal cooperatives that are ready to get permits."

"What are the struggles we are having? First of all, we are having the struggle of land."

"We know where to mine, we know where the gold is, but because these syndicates are taking over where we want to mine - we don't have an area to mine."

"The second bottleneck is that the regional departments don't know whats going on at national level...there is no process for actually giving artisanal miners permits at the current moment."

"The third challenge is we have police brutality because we are seen as zama zama miners. There is no way to distinguish between us and the zama zama miners."