COSCUEZ (AP) – Deep inside mountain tunnels where the heat is so intense it causes headaches, women with power tools are chipping away at boulders in search of gems. They have opened a difficult path for themselves in Colombia’s emerald industry, a sector long dominated by men.
The lack of job opportunities, combined with the hope of a find that will make them rich, has pushed the women into mining. Colombian emeralds are known around the world for their quality and the best can be sold for thousands of dollars, though most people in the industry aren’t wealthy.
“There are months or years in which I don’t even make USD250 from the emerald mines,” said the local miner Yaneth Forero, at a small and informal mine near the town of Coscuez, where production has long been centered. Some of the biggest emeralds in the world have been mined in Colombia, including one weighing 1.36 kilogrammes that broke the world record in 1995. In Coscuez, rumours circulate that one miner recently found an emerald that sold for USD177,000 and left the ramshackle town forever.
In 2022, Colombian emerald exports were worth USD122 million, according to the national federation of emerald companies. The gems are one of the nation’s most iconic products, and are sold in jewellery shops in cities like Cartagena and Bogotá but most emerald profits go to merchants and large companies that have invested millions of dollars in technologies that help them find the most valuable stones.
Workers at small, unregulated mines like Forero, who still use dynamite sticks to open tunnels, have a slim chance of finding the emeralds that can change someone’s destiny.
In her home outside Coscuez, Forero keeps some small, opaque emeralds that she has gathered over the past three months. She reckons that they are not worth more than USD76 in all.
Her earnings are not enough to maintain her four children or help her father, who has developed a respiratory illness after working in emerald mines for decades and needs an oxygen tank to breathe. She also works random jobs to make ends meet like washing uniforms, ironing clothes and cleaning homes.
The 52-year-old said she has struggled to leave this way of life because the economy in Coscuez revolves around mining, and there are few other opportunities. Working in the mines is tougher for women. Once they are done drilling in deep tunnels and sifting through rocks, they must care for their children and do domestic tasks that men are often reluctant to do.
Flor Marina Morales said she started to work in the mines around Coscuez because she needed to provide for her kids.
