Gender-based violence is central to the destabilization of the DRC, not just as a consequence of war but as a deliberate strategy to control land and resources. As Hunt argues in An Acoustic Register, war-related sexual violence is not incidental but weaponized to terrorize communities and drive people from resource-rich areas. Since 1996, during Congo’s first war following Rwanda’s invasion of Congo, the conflict has led to over six million deaths, with countless women subjected to sexual violence at the hands of militias, government forces, and even peacekeepers. 

This violence is deeply tied to the militarization of the mining sector. The vast power imbalance between multinational corporations and the Congolese state allows these companies, many of which have budgets exceeding the GDPs of the countries they operate in, to wield enormous political, economic, and social influence over human rights policies. These corporations often collaborate with or hire military and security forces to secure their mining concessions, facilitating the forced displacement of local communities. Minerals such as coltan, cobalt, and wolframite, essential to the global electronics industry, are extracted under conditions that enable labour exploitation, forced evictions, and systemic sexual violence. 

As Congolese researchers, Annie Matundu Mbambi and Léonnie Kandolo, note, artisanal mining accounts for 80 per cent of the DRC’s exported mineral production. However, since much of this sector remains informal, revenue evades taxation, meaning local economies do not benefit from the wealth extracted from their land. Large-scale mining corporations, despite viewing artisanal mining as ‘illegitimate,’ continue to profit from these supply chains by purchasing minerals at artificially low prices from informal miners. Women, positioned at the lowest level of the mining hierarchy, often engage in droumage, the process of cleaning and sorting minerals for low wages.  

As reported by the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, radiation exposure from certain minerals has been linked to birth defects, miscarriages, and other long-term health complications. With many farmers in mineral-rich regions facing forced evictions or economic desperation, their only options are to abandon agriculture or be absorbed into the exploitative mining economy. Some are forcibly removed, while others, denied access to their land and compensation, turn to mining as a last resort. Artisanal mining, though dangerous and poorly paid, often provides a more stable income than farming, drawing thousands of women and children into precarious labour. 

A 2023 Amnesty International report documents human rights violations by Multinational corporations—including Canada-based Ivanhoe Mines and Luxembourg-based Metalkol—including forced displacements, often carried out with the backing of the Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other armed militias. The report the case of Kabibi, a 38-year-old woman, who was raped by soldiers hired to remove farmers from their land, as she was harvesting cassava on her own land. This further illustrates how gendered violence is central to resource exploitation in the DRC. This type of violence directly targets kinship ties and makes it hard for survivors to return to their communities.

However, the gendered violence Congolese women face, both within and outside of artisanal mining, is not unique to the DRC. As writer, Toni Morrison, once said, ‘Evil is silly. It may be horrible, but at the same time, it’s not a compelling idea. It’s predictable.’  Forced land expulsions in mining regions across Africa further exacerbate these injustices.  In Ghana, women farmers in mining zones have been driven off their ancestral lands with little to no compensation, making them more vulnerable to economic insecurity and sexual exploitation in mining camps. In Zimbabwe, large-scale mining projects have led to the eviction of entire communities, disproportionately impacting women who lack formal land ownership rights and are often left without recourse. In Sierra Leone, multinational corporations have displaced rural populations under the guise of economic development, stripping women of both agricultural livelihoods and access to land inheritance. 

African women in artisanal and small-scale mining navigate capitalist patriarchy on multiple levels—through formal state laws, informal customary legal regimes, and entrenched cultural biases that restrict their access to resources. The struggles of Congolese women in mining are not isolated; they are part of a broader pattern of African women’s dispossession under global capitalism.