TO MATCH FEATURE BC-SAFRICA-WOMEN, 2001-08-08 (photo)

Male and female mine workers prepare to go underground into a mine at AngloGold's Savuka in Carltonville west of Johannesburg, August 8, 2001. Once the preserve of men, South Africa's labour-intensive mining sector is slowly opening up to women - long shut out by prejudice and minority-rule laws. Women were by law restricted from working in the harsh underground mines but thanks to new legislation enacted after the end of apartheid in 1994, they now work alongside men in the lucrative gold mines, dispelling myths that mining is a gender sensitive job. At this mine outside Johannesburg, women are now driving huge winding engines that shift more than 4,000 men from the surface to mines as deep as three km (1.8 miles) or work as locomotive drivers in temperatures as high as 32 degrees Celsius (89.60 Fahrenheit). JN/FMS