People & Culture

Economy

The powerful South African economy, and particularly the mining industry, was a great magnet for Basotho men. Many spent years as migrant workers in the gold mines around Johannesburg. This had a profound effect on Basotho society, as the women of the family were left to hold the home life together. Thus you will see many more women than men around the country, and often it will be the women out working the land. Around Christmas time the men would flock home for the holidays.

Money sent home by the migrant workers did much to keep families afloat financially, as Lesotho is a poor country. Drought in the early 1990's didn't help, and most of the population is unable to subsist on what they grow. The country has little manufacturing and most goods are imported from South Africa. The Lowlands are densely populated and even the mountainous interior is filling with ever more people. This pressure on the land causes immense problems, especially in terms of overgrazing by livestock and consequent erosion. Huge erosion gullies called dongas, grow ever larger and deeper, literally eating up the arable farming land.

Mining activity in South Africa has steadily been declining. The first miners to be retrenced are the non-South Africans. Many Basotho men have therefore been forced to return. This has increased the unemployment and poverty in Lesotho.

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