"Driving trucks, blasting rocks - Women break the mold at Burkina Faso gold mines", 4 March 2020.

Tene Konate takes pride in telling incredulous relatives about her job driving a 72-tonne dump truck around the vast open pit at the Hounde gold mine...The 42-year-old single mother is one of 111 women at the mine, many trained for jobs that would more traditionally be done by men in West Africa: hauling rubble, blasting rocks, or driving heavy vehicles. Konate and her female colleagues are the beneficiaries of a global push by mining companies to bring more women into an industry that has lagged behind others in tackling gender imbalances. They remain firmly in the minority however: women make up just 11% of the workforce at Hounde, which is run by Canada’s Endeavour Mining...

Many women in Burkina Faso face barriers to finding well-paid, skilled work and lack financial independence - more than half marry before they turn 18. Konate’s first job at the site was picking litter, but she was later trained to operate the trucks...“The fact that it is a man’s job and that I can do it, really, I like that very, very, very much,” she said...Sonia Nkiema, who coordinates the work of more than 100 people at the pit, said women can sometimes face pushback from male workers, but she encourages those around her to forget gender and judge colleagues on the quality of their work...