WUNRN
Women News Network - WNN
INDIA - TRIBAL MINER TUBERCULOSIS
DEATHS CREATE
ALARMING INCREASE IN RURAL
VILLAGE POOR WIDOWS
January 13, 2011
Shuriah Niazi – Women News Network – WNN
The hand of a Rabari tribal woman from
Majhera Village, India: Because of the
deaths of so many miners, India’s village of Majhera, in the Shivpuri District
inside the State of Madhya Pradesh, is now called the, “village of widows.”
One Saharia tribal widow, in the
Saharia tribal women have only a 7%
literacy rate. Because of this, finding employment that will support their
family after the death of their husband is almost impossible.
Madhya Pradesh, one of the largest states
in India with the highest percentage (14.5%) of ‘Scheduled Tribes,’ also known
at the Adivasi, is the home of the one of India’s most ancient people known as
the ‘Saharia.’ Living under extreme poverty, that has included a history of
death by hunger, the Saharia are a growing part of
Another miner, Suresh, the husband of 40
year old Saharia woman, Bhagwati, has also passed away. He death has left
Bhagwati with mounting pressure to care for herself and her family. The cause
of death is tuberculosis, that has been exacerbated by the culture of illegal
mining in
Without her husband Bhagwati’s resources
are gone. Many miners wives work alongside their husbands with their children
scavenging the tailings and wastes dumps that often surround the illegal mines.
With the rising weight of poverty in
villages inside Madhya Pradesh malnutrition is also on the rise. Malnutrition
numbers in the region have gone up from 53.55% to 60%. The issue of hunger is a
condition that comes with many illegal mines, as workers face extreme low
wages, uncertain work, mining accidents and the fatal cost of related
illnesses.
“Because miners often live in crowded
conditions, work long hours without enough food, and have little access to
health care or medicines, they have a high risk of getting TB,” said a 2009 report
by Hesperian Foundation, a global grassroots educational publisher for public
health.
Contamination of water in mining areas is
also an issue. “…communities and workers are forced to consume contaminated
water or live without a water facility as ground water is badly depleted due to
mining,” says the advocacy group MM&P – Mines, Minerals & People, a
growing alliance of individuals, institutions and communities who are concerned
and affected by mining in India.
Thirty-seven year old Anandi Bai, another
Saharia widow whose husband worked as an illegal miner, is another part of the
casualty of the rising TB epidemic. The loss of her husband, Ramlal, has left
her and her family with little health care access or food security.
Without husbands, many widows, are thrown
immediately into being single ‘heads of household,’ adrift in a world where
poverty becomes much more severe as they try to face society without their
husbands. Because of this, other dangers to women can occur. False job offers
can turn into sex-trafficking or labour bondage. These dangers are true for
widows as well as their daughters.
Coal miners sit outside the entrance to a mine in
“To be able to survive economically, the
widows go to the quarries themselves and run the risk to get the disease that
caused the death of their husband,” says a June 2010 report by the India
Committee of the
In illegal mines producing the mineral
silica, a condition called Silicosis has become common among workers. Silicosis
comes from extended exposure to rock powder dust that contains the mineral. The
symptoms and prognosis with the disease closely mimic tuberculosis.
The critical rise in TB deaths in Majhera’s
illegal mining community is now exposing the impact fall-out of sub-standard
conditions and corrupt mining policies to regions outside Madhya Pradesh. In
spite of an outcry by labour advocates, illegal mining of iron ore, coal,
silica, copper and other minerals has been on the rise throughout
Because of this, illegal use of children in
child labour and the misuse of women as stone labourers has been brought to the
attention of advocacy groups.
HIV/AIDS, is also among the health
challenges miner families face today. As mining industries attract women
sex-workers who congregate in regions close to the mines, miners who have
contracted the disease bring HIV/AIDS home to their wives. The incidence of
HIV/AIDS in the region may also be contributing to TB deaths. Further studies
need to be made.
Kamla, Bhagwati and Anandi Bai are not the
only women of the Majhera village whose miner husbands have died from
tuberculosis. In Majhera village alone, a shocking total of 92 widows are now
suffering the consequences of their husbands deaths to TB.
Although exact numbers of TB deaths in the
region have not been formally assessed among the tribals, numbers are
desperately needed to enable pro-active health programs and better legislation
to be put into place in
“My state, Madhya Pradesh, has the highest
level of malnutrition in the country, especially among Scheduled Castes and
Scheduled Tribes, but the government has just not woken up to the issue,” said
Yogesh Kumar, executive director of the Samarthan Centre for Development
Support in Bhopal.
TB – tuberculosis, is a disease that has
been known to be communicable in some forms and can be extremely debilitating.
In cases where nutrition is low, and treatment is limited, it is often fatal.
Fatalities are common especially if the disease is a virulent form of TB called
MDR-TB, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.
“All of them (the miners who are suffering)
are Saharia tribal,” says KS Mishra, who is district chairman of a combined
group of 17 regional organizations known as Jan Adhikar Manch. “Life is very
difficult for them,” adds Mishra. “They work in illegal mines for their
livelihood and easily fall and succumb to a disease like TB, as they are malnourished
in the absence of an adequate diet.”
Free medicines, provided by government
hospitals for the treatment of tuberculosis, are part of
Not all victims of the tuberculosis crisis
in the mines are male. Wives of miners and their children are also contracting
the disease.
“Women don’t have a problem saying they
have malaria or chikungunya, asthma or high blood pressure and diabetes for
that matter – it is even fashionable to say so. But the infectious nature of TB
and the social stigma attached to it frighten women from approaching a doctor
in the initial stages when it is easier to cure the disease,” says
“Wives rarely seek medical help until TB is
in a very advanced stage. By this time the disease takes longer and needs more
intensive medical treatment to cure,” MedIndia explains. A visit to the
“It is difficult for these people to even
arrange two square meals (a day),” says Sachin Kuma Jain of the Right to Food
Campaign. “Even if they get the medicine for TB from the hospital it doesn’t
have the desired effect in the absence of a sufficient diet,” he explains. “At
the same time they do not take the full dose of medicines, and have to pay for
it with their life.”
Shivpuri’s district TB officer Dr. RK Jain
suggests generally the people in the area believe that traditional Ayurveda
herbal plant based treatment is the best. Even when western medical treatment
can be made available, many tribals do not trust medical doctors.
With a shortage of health workers in the
region surrounding Majhera it is not uncommon for health workers to visit the
area only once every 3 months to make assessments. Medical doctors are often
virtually non-existent in the rural areas.
In an answer to illegal mining in
“The penalties need to be made stringent,
at least in line with those of other similar Acts, so that the offender is not
let off with a token penalty, as is mostly the case. Hence penalties have been
enhanced by about 100 times,” stressed
To aid the miners and their families, Ms.
Ganeshi Bai, of Majhera village, has been assigned to the region as one of the
local health workers. The problem that she herself is a labourer, who has to
leave for work in order to earn her livelihood, presents another flaw in the
system.
“While a small section of the population in
Madhya Pradesh continues to bask in the glory of development, the majority is
still struggling for the bare necessities,” reminds the Asian Legal Resource
Centre in a March 2010 report.