Lesotho’s migrant-working mothers uplift communities

By Nicole TAU

Free migration is the backbone of economic survival for the people of Lesotho.

Known as the “kingdom in the sky” where ancestral communities are situated atop rock-strewn plateaus above 1,000 meters high, Lesotho’s currency, the loti, is pegged to the South African rand under the Common Monetary Area (CMA).

Yet, this economic tether has not yielded sustainable economic mobility for the Basotho people, 75% of whom are poor or vulnerably poor, according to a 2019 Lesotho Poverty Assessment.

43% of households in Lesotho report having at least one family member who has been working outside the country for decades. Therefore, the landlocked country relies on remittances, largely from South Africa.

Women have become the face of Basotho migrant workers in South Africa. With wages earned across the border, these women are able to support their communities back home.

Mamalefane Lethibela, 50, worked in Durban, South Africa’s Mandeni Industrial Zone, sewing in a Chinese-owned factory from 2018 to 2024.

She earned roughly $55 a week, or more with overtime. Little by South African standards, but a lifeline in Lesotho. She sent remittances through Hello Paisa, an informal digital service that promised lower fees than Shoprite transfers but required lengthy vetting.

“It wasn’t easy to apply,” she explained.

“You submit your documents, but sometimes the application gets declined. Others had theirs approved, so they helped us send money home. For us, it was the simplest way to send money. It felt like a real improvement, and we managed to make positive changes back at home.”

Lethibela’s husband was unemployed when she left for South Africa, but found some work in her absence.

However, although he tried to hold the family together, his meager earnings from doing odd jobs could not cover the family of five’s daily needs, including their deaf, special needs son, Katleho, and their ten-year-old grandson.

In 2023, Lethibela brought her eldest daughter, Mantina, to join her in the factory at Mandeni.

“There was no work back in Lesotho. This was after the factories closed down due to COVID-19. She still works there now. Her money makes some changes because she’s able to put the kids through school and make sure that the food is there,” she says.

In 2023, the flow of remittances into Lesotho reached $485 million, 22.9% of GDP, making Lesotho Africa’s fourth most remittance-dependent nation, according to the World Bank’s Migration and Development Brief.

Beneath this statistic lies the disproportionate role of Basotho women, who remit more of their income despite earning less, sustaining households while battling systemic challenges.

While specific remittance data for Basotho women migrants remains scarce, a critical trend reveals the invisible engine of female labor as mining jobs for Basotho men plummeted from 100,000 in 1990 to 40,500 by 2006, gutting traditional household incomes. Total remittances to Lesotho paradoxically increased (Migration, Remittances and Development in Lesotho, 2010).

This surge occurred alongside a documented rise in female migration, with women constituting half of Lesotho’s growing migrant flow to South Africa and 90% of the textile workforce within Lesotho itself, dubbed the ‘new miners’ despite paltry wages. The sustained remittance growth strongly indicates that female labor migration has become a crucial lifeline.

For decades, Basotho migration was synonymous with men trudging to South African mines. Remittances from male workers once underpinned Lesotho’s economy and defined gender roles at home. But the late 20th century brought mechanization, economic downturns, and stricter immigration policies, shrinking those male-dominated corridors.

Retrenched Basotho mineworkers pursued various paths to survive, including starting businesses back home, taking up farming, finding new jobs within Lesotho, or remigrating again for other types of work (Return, reintegration and survival: The case of Basotho labor migrants retrenched from South African mines, 2013).

With male remittances reducing, the exodus of women became necessary. By the 1980s, scholars noted an uptick in female migration. First, internally, then across the border. By 2018, 52% of cross-border migrants were female, many of them leaving children with grandparents or siblings to sew jeans in Maseru or clean homes in Durban.

They forge their way through numerous challenges to earn a livelihood.

Twenty-four years ago, Matsepiso Makhabane left Lesotho for South Africa. Now 56, she wears multiple hats as an entrepreneur, energy specialist, and advocate for migrant women. Yet, she still does not hold a South African ID.

“As soon as I say, ‘My name is Matsepiso Makhabane, Lesotho passport RA…,’ the attitude completely changes. It’s like you’re no longer a person, like you’re not one of them,” she said.

Makhabane’s first taste of Johannesburg came in 2001, when she accepted a coveted energy policy post at a major organization. Married to a South African by civil law and traditionally, she assumed motherhood (all her three children are South African citizens) and her husband’s paperwork would grant her smoother legal status.

Instead, every permit hinged on his intermittent support. “Whenever I needed a police clearance to renew my permit, I had to depend on him. But he appeared and vanished; it was complicated.”

When her residency lapsed, she began making monthly pilgrimages to Lesotho’s capital of Maseru, six hours away, just to stamp out her passport.

“If I overstayed for two days, I would face a one to five-year ban. So, I would go home before the permit expires, even though it’s costly. You can imagine coming home all the way from Johannesburg every month before the stamp expires. It’s really costing me a lot.”

Women allocate 56% of remittances to school fees and uniforms, in sharp contrast to men’s 32%. Men invest 67% in livestock or property.

Women make up 37.4% of the South African Development Community’s (SADC) migrants to South Africa, dominating the informal sectors at 70% working as street vendors, domestic workers, or textile laborers (UN-INSTRAW/SAIIA). Although they earn 30-50% less than their male counterparts (e.g. R2,929/month vs. R5,500 for miners), they remit 60-80% of their income consistently.

Today, Makhabane leads The Green Business College, based in South Africa, an agro-processing and renewable energy training hub she acquired during the 2020 COVID lockdown. Her institute offers free or subsidized workshops to migrant women, equipping them with organic farming and agro-processing to sustain families in Lesotho.

“I wanted to give other migrant women back home in Lesotho something they could control despite the broken systems. I understand their plight,” she says. “After I make groups with them, I monitor their progress and encourage them. They are doing wonders. They learn to process food into jams and pickles, products they can sell.”

Such grassroots initiatives reveal a pattern of resourcefulness that rarely makes headlines: women leveraging informal networks to launch micro-enterprises, despite living without basic civil rights.

Women in Lesotho formed a cooperative called Moho Re Ka Atleha Basotho (Together We Basotho Can Succeed).

The cooperative is now three years old.

“We pool small grants to help Basotho women in SA who need them. For example, those stranded at a South African hospital or to cover funeral costs,” Lethibela said.

Fourteen SADC member states, including Lesotho, signed the 2016 Revised Protocol on Gender and Development, pledging “gender-responsive legislation” for migrants.

South Africa and Lesotho’s 90-day visa-free agreement offers critical flexibility for Basotho to seek work or reunite with family without immediate deportation risks. Although temporary, this window is a lifeline for women escaping exploitation or pursuing opportunities.

Both governments are also negotiating portable social benefits. They are a potential game-changer for mothers sending remittances home. If implemented, the benefits would allow migrants to retain pensions, healthcare, and childcare support across borders. For Basotho women dominating informal sectors, this could mean safety nets beyond exploitative employers.

South Africa has a Family Reunification Visa option that could potentially empower migrant workers who meet financial eligibility requirements. The option allows the first kin to secure permanent residency and second kin to qualify for renewable temporary permits.

The economic empowerment naturally shifts household dynamics. Basotho men must adapt to women as breadwinners, so decision-making becomes more collaborative. As these women assert agency, they catalyze policy debates, inspire new forms of cross-border collaboration, and reshape the narrative of migration in Southern Africa.

In Lesotho’s villages, open-air meetings or traditional gatherings known as pitso convene to discuss migration’s impacts. There, Basotho blankets and mokorotlo hats lend cultural gravitas as advocates press for family-friendly policies, secure labor rights, and cross-border benefit portability.

The message is that national security and economic growth must not eclipse human dignity and family unity.

Pitsos are vital to informing rural and highland communities about policies, rights, and critical issues like human trafficking. These gatherings also educate participants on local challenges, ensuring grassroots perspectives shape solutions.