More Than a Million Children Work in Mines, Digging for Survival.

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http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/060905LA.shtml

 

 

More Than a Million Children Work in Mines, " Digging for Survival. "

UN International Labour Organization

 

Thursday 09 June 2005

 

To mark World Day against Child Labour on Sunday, the United

Nations labour agency is spotlighting the problems of over a million

children around the world who help to support their families by

working as miners, often for small unregulated enterprises in

dangerous conditions.

 

" Because the money they earn is crucial to ensuring that they and

their families survive, many are unable to attend school at all. These

children are digging for survival, " the UN International Labour

Organization (ILO) says.

 

" Underground, they endure stifling heat and darkness, set

explosives for underground blasts, and crawl or swim through

dangerous, unstable tunnels. Above ground, they dive into rivers in

search of minerals, or may dig sand, rock and dirt and spend hours

pounding rocks into gravel using heavy, oversized tools made for

adults, " it adds.

 

ILO says its International Programme on the Elimination of Child

Labour (IPEC) is working to ensure that no child has to toil in a

quarry or mine.

 

" Pilot projects undertaken by ILO/IPEC in Mongolia, Tanzania,

Niger and the Andean countries of South America have shown that the

best way to assist child miners is to work with the children's own

communities, " ILO adds.

 

ILO says it has helped mining and quarrying communities to

organize cooperatives and improve productivity by acquiring the

machinery that reduces or eliminates the need for children to risk

their lives. Such communities have also obtained legal protections and

developed health clinics, schools and sanitation systems.

 

Over a four-year period, the remote gold mining community of Santa

Filomena, Peru, went from employing to 200,000 child miners to

declaring itself " child labour-free, " it says, adding that ILO helped

the community develop new income-generating projects for adults.

 

Meanwhile, however, more children are entering the mining and

quarrying sector all over the world every day. While community

projects can help child miners in direct and practical ways, only

worldwide awareness of the problem can mobilize the international

effort needed to end the practice for good, it says.

 

In the Philippines, nearly 18,000 children between 5 and 17 years

old work in mines and quarries. In Nepal, about 32,000 children work

in stone quarries, it says.

 

" In Niger alone, a staggering 250,000 children are employed in

both small-scale mines and quarries, accounting for roughly half the

total number of persons doing such work in the entire country, " ILO says.

 

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