Rebecca Lee Pein is a Researcher and Project Officer at Levin Sources, joining the Responsible Sourcing team in June 2022. In 2021, Rebecca was admitted as an attorney of the High Court of South Africa after having successfully completed her Bachelor of Laws (LLB) degree at the University of Cape Town in South Africa in 2017 and two years of law articles at one of the leading firms in South Africa, namely, ENSAfrica.
Rebecca comes from a family of geologists and spent most of her childhood accompanying her mother deep into Africa, staying in remote mining camps and discovering artisanal and small scale mining (ASM), witnessing associated environmental and human rights harms. It was during these times that she realised how vital and powerful mining was for the modern world. She knew from a young age that she wanted to be an advocate for change, addressing the exploitation and poverty that can exist in ASM communities. These experiences all paved the way toward a degree in law and eventually to pursue a PhD in mineral law at the University of Cape Town, which she completed in April 2022. Rebecca’s PhD explored the issues surrounding the formalisation of artisanal mining in sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on all the associated problems thereof, ranging from environmental exploitation to child labour.
Whilst pursuing her PhD in 2018, Rebecca worked for the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF), where she undertook research and writing for the Mineral Law in Africa Research Chair. Rebecca accumulated and disseminated information about mineral law systems in various African countries and researched an extensive array of issues relevant to the extractive industries, inclusive of environmental concerns, socio-economic matters, a transformation of mining industries, mining waste and land issues.
Rebecca's primary language is English, she is fluent in Afrikaans, and is conversant in reading and writing Portuguese. She is based in Cape Town, South Africa.
