YELLOW slag heaps loom over the corrugated metal shacks of the men who once toiled for gold in the deep shafts that honeycomb this part of South Africa’s Free State province. Matela Hlabathe spent 36 years working underground. Recruited from his village in Lesotho as a young man, he joined the hundreds of thousands of migrants travelling from the fringes of South Africa to work in its gold mines. Now 67 and suffering from tuberculosis, he survives off a tiny government pension.
The simple act of getting dressed leaves him tired and breathless. Before he retired in 2008 Mr Hlabathe was earning about $250 a month for full-time work underground. He received $2,500 in compensation from his employer for his TB, but after paying debts and school fees for his five children, there was nothing left. He says he has given his best years to the mines, and emerged with nothing but his illness. “They never treated us well,” Mr Hlabathe said. “The mines never did the right thing.”
On May 13th good news for these former miners came at last. A South African High Court ruled that workers who contracted TB and silicosis as a result of unsafe...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1TGg1I5
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