Widows of the Mine

Abstract

This study delved into the lives of the widows of sandstone mineworkers in Rajasthan newlinewhose husbands had succumbed to silicosis, an occupational disease. There are two newlineproblems that were predominant here t he problem of silicosis and the widowhood that it results in; t he invisibility of the suffering of the women as widows. For this study, the widows of the mines were not just the widows of the mineworkers working in the mines,but also those widows whose husbands died as mineworkers but they themselves had not joined the same profession. Thus widows of the mine include all women facing the double burden of being a widow of a mineworker where she has the burden to head a household amidst patriarchal structures, bear the burden of debt left behind and also take care of the children and the household chores. The Objectives of the study were to elucidate the experiences of discrimination that the widows face; to expound diagnostic gaps in Silicosis and to understand exclusion of widows from the policy realm. The methodology of the study had a Mixed- methods sequential Explanatory design spread over two stages. The first stage consisted of quantitative data collection (30 case studies), followed by a qualitative newlinestudy (Interview schedule for 78 respondents). The study was located in Jodhpur district of Rajasthan, and data was collected from across 5 tehsils out of the 7 tehsils in the district. TB and Silicosis are the major causes of widowhood, each contributing to 50% of the cases newlinesurveyed. On the basis of empirical data, it is highly likely that some cases of silicosis or silicotuberculosis may have been misdiagnosed as simply TB, or diagnosed late as Silicosis,increasing mortality rates and indebtedness ...... newline