Coal dust settles on Emalahleni before the sun rises, coating tin roofs, school uniforms and bare feet. By nightfall, smoke from power stations and cooking fires thickens the air, burning throats and eyes. In this mining city east of Johannesburg, extraction is not just an industry. It is the atmosphere people breathe and the ground they walk on.
It is also where children and young girls are disappearing.
Built at the heart of South Africa’s coal belt, Emalahleni, whose name means “place of coal” in isiZulu, sits in Mpumalanga province, about 70 miles east of Johannesburg. For decades, coal and gold mines here powered the national economy and promised jobs, stability and development. They drew workers from across South Africa and neighboring countries, reshaping families, migration patterns and entire communities.
Now, as South Africa struggles to regulate thousands of abandoned and poorly rehabilitated mines, illegal mining networks have expanded into spaces the state has failed to govern, creating conditions where poverty, gender-based violence and child exploitation converge.
Religious sisters working quietly in mining communities say they are seeing a rise in cases involving girls coerced into sexual relationships, early marriages and survival sex linked directly to illegal mining settlements. The abuses often go unreported and unpunished.
As global demand for minerals accelerates — driven in part by the transition to green energy — Emalahleni has become a warning. The same extraction that powers economies and climate ambitions is also deepening local harm. Mineral wealth continues to flow upward, while children and women absorb the cost.
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With thanks to the National Catholic Reporter (NCR) and Doreen Ajiambo, where this article originally appeared.
