- Small-scale miners produced 34.9 tonnes of gold in 2025, nearly three times large-scale output.
- Chegutu has become a test case for formalizing artisanal mining, with 300 miners trained this year.
- Mercury use remains widespread, with 96% of sites still relying on the toxic metal.
YOU hear this town’s mining belt before you see it.
Stone crushers grind rock into powder, diesel generators hum under acacia trees, and by the time the settlement comes into view, the “quiet” bush has revealed itself as a small, loud factory built from dust and sweat.
Under patched tarpaulins, men sort crushed ore by hand. Women swirl water and gravel in metal pans, watching for flecks of gold. Teenagers feed rock into jam tables, eyes fixed on black sand for a telltale glint.
This is Chegutu’s small-scale gold belt, about 105 kilometres west of Harare, one of dozens of pockets across Zimbabwe where informal miners now dig up more gold than the country’s big mining companies.
Small-scale miners delivered 34.9 tonnes of gold to Fidelity Gold Refinery in 2025, compared with 11.8 tonnes from large-scale companies, according to the refinery’s own figures. That helped push Zimbabwe’s total gold output to a record 46.7 tonnes last year, generating roughly $4.6 billion in export revenue.
The Zimbabwe Miners Federation, which represents small-scale operators, is now targeting 45 tonnes from artisanal miners alone in 2026.
Government and industry estimates put the number of registered small-scale gold miners at roughly 500,000, with close to two million Zimbabweans depending on the trade for their livelihoods. Nine in 10 miners still work without secure claims to the land they dig, federation president Henrietta Rushwaya has said.
The old idea that mining is men’s work does not hold here. Women feed the crushers and pans, and young people haul water, feed the mills and watch the jam tables.
“Two years ago, I buried my husband and thought my life was buried with him,” said Mai Tariro, a widow with three children who took up panning on a neighbor’s advice. “Since then, the bush has been my employer. It pays my rent. It keeps my children in school.”
Vimbai Pekeshe, another panner, said the work has given women a say they did not have before. “Before, we sat at home waiting for money that never came. Now we decide,” she said. “My daughter is in Form 4 because of this dust.”
Research on the region backs up what the two women describe. Women make up an estimated 40% to 50% of Zimbabwe’s artisanal mining workforce, one of the highest shares in Sub-Saharan Africa. Most, however, remain in lower-paid jobs such as carrying ore and washing gravel rather than owning claims or supervising crews.
A 2025 study by the Tariro Youth Development Trust also documented widespread gender-based violence against women in mining communities, and pointed to weak legal protection for them on site.
For 18-year-old Pride Jesinawo, the appeal is simpler: a wage his friends in town cannot find. “Some nights we do not sleep, hauling water, moving stones, grinding ore, panning till our backs ache,” he said. “My friends in town are still looking for jobs. I already have one. I’m saving for college fees.”
Zimbabwe’s official unemployment rate looks low on paper, estimated at under 9% by the International Labour Organization. Independent labor studies put the share of workers in informal jobs, including artisanal mining, at around 80%, a gap that helps explain why young Zimbabweans keep choosing the pits over the job hunt.
Chegutu has become something of a showcase for the government’s push to bring order to the sector. In May, 300 small-scale miners graduated from a state-backed training program funded by Mutapa Gold Resources and run with Magaya Mining and the Zimbabwe School of Mines.
Mines and Mining Development Minister Polite Kambamura told the graduation ceremony the sector’s status has changed. “This sector is no longer peripheral,” he said.
At a nearby Magaya Mining processing site, chief executive Zweli Lunga said tighter security and formal work have cut the violence that once plagued the area. “Everybody has time to work and make money,” he said, describing a shift away from the fights that used to break out among rival crews.
The company is also testing carbon-in-leach processing, a method it says can recover gold without mercury, a break from the norm across most of Zimbabwe’s small-scale sites.
Mercury remains the industry’s biggest health and environmental hazard. Zimbabwe’s Environmental Management Agency estimates small-scale miners use more than 50 tonnes of mercury a year to separate gold from ore. This is despite the country’s 2021 ratification of the Minamata Convention, a global treaty aimed at cutting mercury use.
A United Nations Environment Programme review found 96% of artisanal gold-processing sites in the country still rely on the toxic metal, and researchers have found women and children living near mining sites are especially at risk.
EMA spokesperson Amkela Sidange said the agency struggles to stop the trade in smuggled mercury, calling itself “aware of the continued clandestine illegal importation of mercury” and describing enforcement as a challenge that requires cooperation across government agencies.
Beyond mercury, studies of Zimbabwe’s artisanal miners have found high rates of workplace accidents and disease. One survey of more than 400 miners found accident and injury rates above 25%, driven mainly by mine collapses, blasting and long shifts.
Another study of nearly 4,000 miners recorded silicosis in 19% of cases and HIV in 18%, reflecting cramped, dusty conditions and limited access to health care.
By law, all gold mined in Zimbabwe must be sold to Fidelity Gold Refinery, a state-owned company that holds a monopoly on gold buying and export. Miners can sell at any of its buying centers around the country and are typically paid on the spot, once the gold’s weight and purity are checked.
Since 2024, small-scale miners have kept 100% of their export proceeds and no longer pay value-added tax on gold delivered to the refinery, changes meant to discourage smuggling, which authorities say still costs Zimbabwe close to $2 billion a year.
Since May 2026, small-scale gold mining has also been reserved for Zimbabwean citizens and fully Zimbabwean-owned companies, with foreign operators required to shift into large-scale mining or shut down by January 2027.
Back at the crushers, veteran miner Jimmy Sakani leaned over a teenager working the jam table, coaching him the way he was once coached. “Watch the black sand, mwanangu,” he said. “Gold does not float. If you hurry, you lose it.”
Government officials and mining executives are betting that patience, paired with formal training, shared processing centers and mercury-free technology, can turn Zimbabwe’s artisanal gold rush into a lasting industry rather than a boom that burns out.
For now, in Chegutu, the crushers keep turning from sunrise to dusk, one pan of gravel at a time.
