Migrant Labor

Goldwidows (1990) is a compelling documentary set in the Village of Pulani, Lesotho. Highlighting the day-to-day struggles of the women of this village, the documentary illuminates the extent to which migrant labor (of the Lesotho men) bequeaths social costs to these rural communities.
Throughout the film, we see the dominant roles these women have assumed in the community. Mamelaphi Sholoko brews beer and soft porridge for survival. Her husband, Albert, was once a worker on the Vaal Reefs Mine where he worked from 1949. Yet, despite Albert’s history of working in the mines, he does not receive a pension. Matsepang Nyakana brews beer for a living. Like her, most of the women in these rural communities are uneducated and depend on their husbands as well as themselves for survival. There are also the psychological and economic implications of labour migrancy. We learn that in Lesotho, women once wore leather and men wore sheepskin before the men started working on the goldmines and adopting more Western attire. This illuminates the effect that labor migrancy had on the lives of these Africans. Mamelaphi points out the economic implications of the arrival of the white man (colonialism), which served to upset the livelihood and subsistence ethic of these communities. She states, “Before we ate milk, meat, maize, and vegetable.” Yet now they live day-to-day on maize and spinach—their children revere the food made by the Europeans and feed that which is cultivated by themselves to the animals. One lady points out the fact that she was only able to give birth to one child on account of her husband acquiring another wife in South Africa. While saying this she seems disappointed as if she realizes her role as the “bearers of children.” In many African communities like that of Pulani, women bore many children thus supplying their families with