In their report, Human Rights Watch indicates that the sexual attacks were perpetrated against poor women of Papua New Guinea who were near Porgera Mine (PJV) owned by Barrick Gold, while scouring the waste rock dumps around the mine for traces of gold.

This practice, which is not authorized, resulted in attacks against the women by private personnel of the mining company. According to the report issued by the human rights organization and partially reproduced by IPS, a woman denounced having been raped by six security officers: but the aggressions didn’t end there, since she was also beaten in the face by one of them, shattering her teeth.

The Canadian mining company stated that they had fired the employers involved in the incident after an internal investigation. Also, four people involved were arrested, and two of them were charged with rape and another was accused of causing serious physical injuries.

However, civil society organizations monitoring the activities of Barrick Gold pointed out that the response by the company was too late, because they had ignored denunciations about abuses by its personnel in Papua New Guinea for years.

Human Rights Watch stated that these events are related to the lack of governmental control by Papua New Guinea authorities about the activities of foreign extractive industries.

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