Some sections of the security forces are licensed to utilize lethal force. Police and security guards have killed eight people (the company's figures) to 14 people (according to a community association) over the past ten years and injured many more.MiningWatch Canada, Newsletter 21: Saturday April 8, 2006 – Placer Dome Admits to Killings at Porgera Mine in Papua New Guinea In 2009 rising insecurity around the mine led the government of Papua New Guinea to deploy several squads of mobile policemen to Porgera. According to Amnesty International, the deployment resulted in the eviction of nearby villagers and the burning of their houses. Human Rights Watch investigated and documented reports of abuse, including brutal gang rapes and beatings, carried out by security personnel at the mine. After having denied previous claims of crimes committed at the mine, Barrick Gold launched an internal investigation which confirmed the findings. In 2022 Canadaland reported hundreds of rapes undertaken by employed security contractors, and starting in 2003 or 2004 a policy of using sexual violence as a means to deter people from salvaging for gold on around the mine. Canadaland quoted Akali Tange's 2005 report The Shooting Fields of Porgera Joint Venture'' which documents allegations of murder of local residents by mine security contractors. After acknowledging the history of sexual violence perpetrated by guards at the mine in 2010, Barrick Gold set up a compensation scheme and paid 119 survivors of sexual violence approximately CAD$8,000 per person on the condition that they agreed not to sue Barrick Gold. Environmental issues The mine has, for many years, been severely contaminating the Porgera River, adjacent rivers, and the Gulf of Papua. The mine practises riverine tailings disposal, by which processed ore is dumped directly into the local river. This increases sediment loading by approximately 8 million tonnes per year. Additionally, the mine has two 'Erodible Dumps' – areas where soft waste rock are dumped, and the high amount of local rainfall gradually washes into the local rivers. The increase in sediment loading is hard to quantify but is generally thought to be in the range of 4 to 6 million tonnes per year. The river systems eventually deliver hundreds of millions of tonnes of sediment into the Gulf of Papua. The main concern with riverine tailings disposal as practiced by the PJV is not the quantities of sediment, but the toxicity of the tailings, which contains significant