Category Archives: Lesotho

This Is Not a Burial, It’s a Resurrection review – an uncompromising tale of resistance

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Mary Twala gives an intimate yet epic performance as an 80-year-old widow fighting plans for dam that will obliterate her village in Lesotho

This is an extraordinary and otherworldly feature film from the tiny landlocked kingdom of Lesotho in southern Africa. It is the tale of a rebel spirit: an elderly woman who opposes government plans to flood her village, making way for a dam. It’s a film about resistance and resilience, but director Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese is coolly unsentimental and realistic about the inevitable march of capitalism and construction. Weaving in ideas around displacement, collective identity and history, this film takes on almost mythic qualities.

Related: From Beyoncé to the Oscars: Mary Twala, Africa's queen of cinema

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The women fighting sexual abuse in the factories where your jeans are made

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An investigation into working conditions in garment factories in Lesotho revealed widespread sexual abuse of women. Annie Kelly travelled to southern Africa to investigate

Last year, a report by the Workers Rights Consortium NGO revealed widespread rape, sexual assault and harassment at a number of garment factories in Maseru, the capital city of Lesotho.

The Guardian’s Annie Kelly tells Rachel Humphreys how she travelled to Lesotho to discover for herself what had been going on in factories producing jeans for top brands such as Levi’s and Wrangler. Sethelile Nthakana, a WRC researcher, explains how the factories would operate using casual workers chosen at the gates, who would then be expected to enter relationships with the bosses who had selected them.

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Matsepo Ramakoae and Lesotho’s lost chance to elect its first female leader

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After the resignation of Thomas Thabane the small south African nation could have addressed its huge political gender imbalance. What happened?

Lesotho, a tiny mountain kingdom in southern Africa, has always been dwarfed in size and achievements by its neighbour South Africa.

Many people around the world were not even aware of Lesotho’s existence until the beginning of this year when then prime minister Thomas Thabane and his third wife, Maesaiah Thabane, were accused of murdering Thabane’s estranged second wife, Lipolelo, in 2017.

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Global report: WHO says Covid-19 ‘may never go away’ and warns of mental health crisis

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Trump brands Fauci’s caution over reopening ‘unacceptable’; Russia has second highest infections; Japan eyes lifting national emergency

The World Health Organisation has warned that coronavirus “may never go away” as its experts predicted that a global mental health crisis caused by the pandemic was looming.

The global health body on Wednesday cautioned against trying to predict how long coronavirus would keep circulating, and called for a “massive effort” to overcome it.

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Lesotho PM under police investigation deploys army to ‘restore order’

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Thomas Thabane faces calls to step down after allegations of possible involvement in murder of ex-wife

Lesotho’s prime minister announced on Saturday that he had deployed troops in the streets to “restore order”, and accused unnamed law enforcement agencies of undermining democracy.

Thomas Thabane is under pressure to step down after police said they suspected him of a hand in the murder of his estranged wife in 2017, a case that has thrown the country into political turmoil.

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Lesotho PM requests immunity from charge of murdering wife

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Lawyer argues that Thomas Thabane’s office gives him immunity from prosecution

Lesotho’s prime minister has made a surprise appearance in court, where his lawyer argued that his office granted him immunity from prosecution for allegedly murdering his estranged wife shortly before he took power.

Thomas Thabane sat in the public gallery of the court in Maseru, the capital of the small mountain kingdom, with his present spouse. He had been due to appear on Friday to be charged with murder, but had not appeared, saying he had to travel to neighbouring South Africa for medical treatment.

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Lesotho’s first lady charged with murder of PM’s former wife

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Police claim ‘strong case’ against Maesiah Thabane for 2017 killing of Lipolelo Thabane

Lesotho’s first lady Maesiah Thabane has been charged with murder for her alleged links to the brutal 2017 killing of the prime minister’s previous wife.

Maesiah Thabane, 42, will spend the night in custody after she came out of hiding and turned herself in to the police earlier on Tuesday.

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Drought leaves tens of thousands in Lesotho ‘one step from famine’

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Rural areas worst hit as massive fall in food production causes severe hunger for a quarter of country’s population

Tšepo Molapo gazes into space, worrying about where the next meal will come from. Next to him, his two-year-old granddaughter plays, oblivious of their desperate situation.

Molapo’s children all died at illegal mines in neighbouring South Africa, where they had trekked in search of work.

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Bosses force female workers making jeans for Levis and Wrangler into sex

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Women at factories in Lesotho owned by Taiwanese firm say jobs and promotions in jeopardy if they refuse advances, claims report

Women producing jeans for American brands including Levi Strauss, Wrangler and Lee have been forced to sleep with their managers to keep their jobs or gain promotion, an investigation into sexual harassment and coercion at garment factories in Lesotho has found.

Brands have responded to the “extensive” allegations by the the US-based Worker Rights Consortium by signing enforceable agreements with labour and women’s rights groups to eliminate gender-based violence for more than 10,000 workers at five factories owned by the Taiwanese company Nien Hsing, one of the southern African country’s largest employers.

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‘You often get sick’: the deadly toll of illegal gold mining in South Africa | Christopher Clark

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Driven by need, tens of thousands of women are risking death, disease and sexual violence to scrape a living in the country’s informal mining sector

On the outskirts of Durban Deep, an abandoned mining town with a labyrinth of underground tunnels long since abandoned by the big gold companies, Elizabeth goes rhythmically about her work.

Grinding piles of rough stones into white, gold-flecked silt on a large concrete slab, the 40-year-old is one of the ghostly dust-covered zama zamas – artisanal miners, mostly illegal – who have turned to scavenging in disused gold and diamond mines across South Africa.

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