Humanitarian Mine Action (HMA) entails more than removing landmines from the ground. It includes actions ranging from teaching people how to protect themselves from danger in a mine-affected environment to advocating for a mine-free world.

Despite its name, mine action is not just concerned with landmines. In many countries, unexploded ordnance, or UXO, poses an even greater threat to people’s safety. UXO can comprise bombs, mortars, grenades, missiles or other devices that fail to detonate on impact. Many are live and sensitive and some can kill if touched or moved. One of the main sources of UXO in modern conflicts are cluster munitions. Today, mine-action programmes typically address problems of landmines, UXO and all the “Explosive Remnants of War” (ERW) that remain after a conflict. These include “abandoned ordnance” and weapons left behind by armed forces when they leave an area.

There are five aspects or “pillars” of mine action:

• Removing and destroying landmines and explosive remnants of war and marking or fencing off areas contaminated with them.
• Mine-risk education to help people understand the risks they face, identify mines and UXO and learn how to stay out of harm’s way.
• Medical assistance and rehabilitation services to victims, including job skills training and employment opportunities.
• Advocating for a world free from the threat of landmines and encouraging countries to participate in international treaties and conventions designed to end the production, trade, shipment or use of mines.
• Helping countries destroy their stockpiles of mines as required by international agreements, such as the 1999 anti-personnel mine-ban convention.

Landmines affect at least 60 countries and injure or kill between 15,000 and 20,000 people annually. Even when they do not cause direct injury, their presence can prevent economic activity and lead to great hardship.