When mining reshapes bodies and destinies: trafficking, gender-based violence and resilience among rural women in Kalehe and Kabare in South Kivu

Introduction: Artisanal mining in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), particularly in the territories of Kabare and Kalehe in South Kivu, constitutes an ambivalent social space where economic opportunities, structural precarity and gender-based violence intersect. Drawing on an inductive, multi-sited qualitative approach, this study examines the life trajectories of rural women and girls who are directly or indirectly involved in artisanal mining economies, with the aim of analysing the social, economic and political mechanisms that produce and sustain their vulnerability to trafficking and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV). Methods: This study adopts an inductive approach and draws on a range of data collection techniques, including semi-structured interviews, focus groups and an in-depth literature review. The study highlights a continuum between economic survival strategies and forms of exploitation, in which access to mining-related income is embedded within asymmetrical power relations, the invisibilisation of women's labour, and institutionalised practices of domination. Results: The findings show that, far from being limited to spectacular forms of violence in contexts of armed conflict, the trafficking of women and girls is rooted in gradual, normalised, and often invisible processes linked to chronic poverty, constrained mobility, patriarchal norms, and the fragmented governance of mining sites. While mining sites offer limited spaces of economic empowerment for women, through access to independent income, increased mobility and solidarity networks these opportunities remain fragile and highly conditioned by gendered extractive structures that appropriate both women's labour and bodies. Discussion: By uncovering the "silent cradles" of trafficking in rural mining areas, this article contributes to the literature on gender, extractivism and human security, advocating for a structural analysis of gendered violence that moves beyond humanitarian and securitised frameworks.