By Jessica Hopper
Rock Center
Samba Diarra, 15, journeyed 200 miles to live in a plastic hut alone and work in an artisanal gold mine in Mali. The teen came to the mine to help support his five younger brothers and sisters.
“The main reason I left home is to help my parents and sending them money is my main goal,” Diarra said.
Diarra’s parents can’t afford to send him to school because he has to support his younger siblings. He is one of at least 20,000 children working in Mali’s artisanal mines.
Mali is Africa’s third largest gold producer. Artisanal mines rely on heavy human labor and little mechanization. People throughout West Africa are flocking to work in the primitive pits.
“Globally, we’ve seen an increase with the number of artisanal gold miners because of the rise of gold prices, but that doesn’t necessarily translate to better living conditions,” said Juliane Kippenberg who helped author a Human Rights Watch report on Mali’s mines.
The skyrocketing price of gold has led to a rush on the precious metal in the United States and throughout the world, but some of the mining that’s helping feed the world’s craving involves child labor and a dangerous process involving mercury.
Approximately 100,000 to 200,000 people in Mali are working in artisanal mines, according to the Human Rights Watch report. Kippenberg told NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel that 20 to 30 percent of the workforce in African artisanal mines is child labor.
The report entitled, “A Poisonous Mix: Child Labor, Mercury and Artisanal Gold Mining in Mali,” details abysmal working conditions.
“There couldn’t be a bigger contrast between the situation of a 7-year-old or a 14, 15-year-old working day in and day out in the very harsh conditions of these mines and the beautiful world of jewelry somewhere in Switzerland or the U.S. or elsewhere,” Kippenberg said.
The children working in the mines, some as young as six years old, help dig shafts with pickaxes, lift and carry heavy bags of ore and pan the gold with an amalgamation process involving mercury.
“Not only is it hard work and then you’re tired from it, but it is hard work that everyday gives you pain: headaches, back pain, joint aches and it will create long-term spinal injury for some of these children who are carrying very heavy loads and they are very small,” Kippenberg said.
Diarra spent his first day pulling up gold ore that was mined by men working deep underground. At the end of his first day, he was paid with a bag of dirt. Gold is currently trading at around $1742 an ounce.
“After I wash and refine it, I’ll get paid for the gold that might be inside,” he said.
Some children working in the mines never get paid. Those who do, get just a few dollars a week.
Diarra still has dreams of a life away from the mines.
“I would like to study if I have the opportunity, I would also like to be a footballer,” he said.
Kippenberg said that it will be hard for Diarra to leave the mines.
“The sad news is that he is not going to be able to realize his dreams. In almost all of these situations where children come here to work by themselves, they are terribly exploited and will probably end up working in artisanal gold mines for the rest of their lives or for very long periods, making, eking, out a living,” Kippenberg said.
Malian law actually bans child labor in artisanal mines, but the law is not heavily enforced. One miner told Rock Center that he simply can’t afford the fees to send his children to school so instead they work with him.
Diata Lissoko, the traditional leader of one of the mines said, “With this kind of physical labor, life is short.”
Lissoko said that just two days prior to Rock Center’s visit, a young man had suffocated deep in the mine.
“It was 30, 40 meters deep. When you descend a mine that deep, there is no oxygen down there, so if you breathe in the gas, you are killed immediately,” Lissoko said.
Others are dying slowly from toxic mercury vapors. To speed up the refining process, workers are mixing mercury with the crushed ore. The mercury adheres to the gold flakes. Then the mixture is burned. Those vapors are the most toxic. Women and children often are in charge of panning the gold and often use the mercury in their backyards in the middle of their villages.
“Working with mercury in a residential area is a particularly bad practice because it affects so many people,” said Kippenberg of Human Rights Watch. “They will be exposed to mercury poisoning. Just to give you an idea, it’s not something that happens very quickly, but people will begin to have coordination problems, memory problems in high doses. It can lead to kidney failure, heart problems and it can even kill people.”
Approximately 12 percent of the world’s gold is born from the grueling process of artisanal mining, Kippenberg said.
“It’s not the majority of the gold, but at the same time, it’s a significant proportion,” Kippenberg said.
The gold is sold to middlemen and eventually ends up in places like Dubai and Switzerland where it is melted and mixed with gold from large scale mines before it’s turned into jewelry worn throughout the world.
“Even if it is a long, long supply train, at the end of the day, it is the gold from these artisanal mines in Mali and other parts of the world that is exported and then goes to the world’s markets and is turned into jewelry,” Kippenberg said. “So, yes, there is a direct link between the people who wear the jewelry and buy it and the refiners, the big international companies who trade the gold globally and those who work in these mines, the depths of these shafts, who risk their lives in doing so.”
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The Republican jobs plan for America ...
More like Obama's job plan, cuz soon thats what we will be doing when he finishes destroying
the U.S
Soon the dollar will be worth less than a bag of dirt if he keeps the printing press going at full speed!
There will be a special place in hell for those that use people like this around the world...this is slavery. And look at the subliminal add for "Invest in Gold" by the Pinnacle Group on the SAME page...WTF....just cold hearted and greedy.
I grew up in a middle-class family that didn't have much extra, I was told that if I wanted to drive, I had to work to pay for it. There was also an expectation that my studies would never suffer. The problem with MY generation (I'm 26) is that most kids never learned to work because mommy and daddy said school is your job. School should be first and foremost, but learning what it means to work for a dollar should be a close second.
"Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation."
The late Walter Cronkite
(Education for the young should come first, but education also means "knowing the value of a dollar. THE Chris Matthews himself a couple years back said he was putting his 16 year old son to work in CONSTRUCTION for the summer - "To learn the value of a dollar." Smart man, that Chris.)
hahaha hes black
I think the bigger issue here is that these poor families, who can't afford to feed themselves, continue to breed. If you can't afford to you shouldn't be reproducing. The kid in this story has a big family that he's trying to help support. Why did his parents reproduce so much in the first place? It's their own fault. Stop having kids if you can't afford it.
With SIX MILLION BABIES and CHILDREN world-wide dying every year by the age of FIVE (5) from HUNGER - DON"T YOU WONDER how these parents can even SLEEP at night?
They need to increase the access, education and ability to use birth control in that case.
Bashing each other's political party is not soliving the problem. I'm amazed at the lack of empahty for this situation. They are working like this to eat today -- and they're tomorrows are raught with health problems. I wish this article gave us some suggestions on what we CAN DO, other than boycott gold. That's not going to go over well with the elite. Please pray for these people if nothing else.
On the other hand, some elite would be very glad if gold was boycotted, which is why the gover sometimes buys all of the commercial gold - as before the Great Depression.
The Bill Gates Foundation has already been supplying vaccinations for babies and chldren world-wide in an effort to gete them to survive the diseases of childhood poverty.
PRESENTLY his Foundation has Physicians and Scientists working on a MALE BIRTH CONTROL PILL to use world-wide since surveys have shown MOST MALES would utilize such a pill if offered.
The Bill Gates Foundation is working on this INHUMANE problem in regard to children born into abject poverty EVERY SINGLE DAY.
Thank you, Bill Gates.
Still waiting for someone to actually discuss the article.
I wonder how much easier this family's life would be had they not had 6 kids.
Mali... Certainly sounds like a teapublican paradise..
No regulation, low taxes, small govt.
Paid with a bag of dirt.. Mercury poisoning. To the person saying Child Trafficking is next... It already has been a problem for Mali.
http://www.hrw.org/news/2003/04/01/west-africa-stop-trafficking-child-labor (2003)
I am more horrified over the mercury use.
Below is taking from this article:
http://ogopalakrishnan.posterous.com/take-mercury-out-of-childrens-hands
"When I recently visited Mali, in west Africa, a boy no older than 6 told me that he handles mercury: “You mix it in a cup and put it on the fire. I do this at the mining site.”
Then he added: “I would like to leave this work.”
Several other children described to me how they worked with mercury. None of them knew about the health risks. “I started gold mining at a small age,” a 15-year-old girl told me. “I pan for gold, I also work with mercury....I also burn it. I have never heard that this is unhealthy. I work with mercury every day.”
Mercury is particularly harmful for children, as their systems are still developing, and its damage is irreversible. It attacks the central nervous system and several organs, and in higher doses, it can kill. Child laborers working with mercury are at grave risk of mercury poisoning, scientific studies have shown."
Excellent and Gingrich will ensure our children can too work in these conditions to support their old failing parents. VERY NICE SENATOR, you nasty mother ;k;sdjkal;fjkl;.
I truly hope your children get the privilege of working in the deepest darkest oxygen deprived mine possible in the US before anyone else goes in.
Alan Grobb - Do you realize that those jobs that used to be held by children and teens, delivering papers, bagging groceries, etc., are now coveted by adults who can't make a living?
really makes you thankful to be lucky enough to be born in the united states. how sad that this is probably the only life they'll know. there's no carefree childhood for these kids.
Instead of shovels this election Obama will send all his followers dirt bags...be called bag ready jobs.
Oh...the GOP will create jobs for the underage worker. Always wondered what they meant when they blather their cherished talking point again and again.
Ya, and all you Obama lovers, guess what your TAX dollars are being given to the people who RUN these mines in the way of so called "foreign aid".
So all that liberal feed the world crap is just feeding the government of these counties and all that TAX MONEY is going into a Swiss bank account, until the NEXT corrupt government gets in and they promise all the big changes with YOUR tax dollars, and that money goes into another corrupt govenment.
THAT is all that your liberal, give everyone a piece of the pie gets you. NOTHING.
Mean while here at home we have millions living on the streets, starving, no medical care, or meds. Oh except for the illegals.
That picture and story DOES not make me feel sorry for those people. IT makes me angry that my tax dollars are going to support their corrupt government, and most of it is going in the back door so that it can be kept quiet.
Irrational whining about a subject you appear to know nothing about...
If you can back your assertion connecting the current admn. with this story... have at it..
But we both know you can't
This story is about Africa and what the children go through, NOT our OWN STUPID politics. Some of you posters take every opportunity to bring up idiotic statements that have NOTHING to do with the story. You should be on a freaking ledge somewhere. Very sad what those kids have to go through, but the African Govt needs to get off their Kat chewing, fat, sorry dead asses, and deal with this problem on their own.
Is this where the Newtster got the idea from
Newt's has no feelings for these kids or interests in their well being, ol' newt is looking for away to drive down wages. For those of you to young to know at one time people worked for textile mills for script. You lived in a company house, your power & water was provided by the mill and you bought all that you needed (groceries, clothes and other things) from the company store. If you needed a big ticket item that the company store didn't have you could swap your script for real money to purchase it. You were beholden to the mill. That is what newt wants to bring back, slavery. Tennessee Ernie Ford had a great #1 song about it called 16 Tons. Listen to it and get educated then you can call yourself stupid or idiot.
soon we will all be like this kid, working for food only, and the super rich will still be super rich,, when the left bankrupts the country,, and then we will eat dirt or go to war.
I get so sick of hearing "get a job liberal losers". I'm a liberal, proud of it. I have never been unemployed, I have never depended on the government for "handouts", I have never just sat on my butt in front of the t.v. eating Mcdonalds. I am in my mid 40's and have held a job without a break since I was 14 years old.
You people who generalize all liberals as being lazy and not willing to work, as being just grubbing for the next government handout, as socialists.
It's really sickening, and you all should be deeply ashamed of yourselves. You have no idea what you're talking about.
Amen to that, Lisa!!!!!!
Double amen to that, Lisa!!!!
And blacks here think they have it bad.
what a fool.
Actually I would say "And the POOR here think they have it bad."
Having seen the real poor in multiple third world countries, the people we call poor here don't have a clue what poverty is REALLY like. Race has nothing to do with it.
The country is in Africa and the people are mostly Muslim. Two strikes against progress. I think it is better the poor kid works instead of carrying a AK-47.
get off of it...your comments are way out of line for the story....you guys are true Tea Party A@@@
and as a True Republican I can't wait until there is no longer a Tea Party or a Newt...
We have got to get rid of these racist Tea Party members, they have done nothing but damaged the Republican Party and country with their Neo-nazi racist attitude...even I'm sick of them...and you idiot can not say that your Tea Party is not racist...I went to the rallys I saw the signs and heard the comments...the Blacks that were at these events left...only the Uncle Toms hung around..
Sherbes - Thank you for demonstrating your own racism...Uncle Toms eh?
What is missing from this story is why this lads father isn't working to support his children. Why is it that these primitives make children to support their need to do nothing except make more children which he does not intend to support. The father is the problem first. Societies that ignore this huge travesty should be shamed in public and if he refuses to work make him do a stint in the military.
Really... And you know this. how??? Specifically...
They are primitives, there is no public funded education system in Africa..you have to pay for your education from K-12...all of their leaders are crooks...no one pays taxes...their health care system is in the toilet...there is always some uprising...they have tribal wars...they practice genocide...YES...they are very primitive...they do not have running water, they do not have a 911 emergency system..they live in mud huts...and the rich run everything...they are primitives...you sound as if you are offended by the truth...Africa will always be on the bottom because they are ignorant people...they kill each other..they rape their children...they sale their children into slavery...if the truth offends you, you are in serious trouble...what bother me is that this is the type of situation Newt Gringrich want for the poor and Black children of this country...thats whats offensive...
You liberals are so stupid. Just by nature of the democratic party, I know most of you are poor. You're not poor because you don't work hard, you're poor because you are stupid. O.K. so beat up on the Republicans and blame them but at the end of the day it is you, the stupid liberals, that go to Wal-Mart and spend your money on imported items guaranteeing you will never have a job in America. Watch Forest Gump sometime. "Stupid is as stupid does."
Fully realizing of course that incomes and wealth in most blue states is above the solidly red state south..
Nice try though...
i can guarantee there are more republicans that shop in walmart.
Walmart - birth place of the teabaggers.
Always funny to hear liberals tell us how Republicans support the rich but then tells us Republicans are all poor. Of course they act like THEIR representatives are all for the poor and wouldn't have anything to do with those really evil rich folks while ignoring that the wealthiest districts in the country are represented by Democrats.
There are 2 very distinct Republican parties. The leadership who are mostly rich and only care about maintaining their wealth. And the poor arm of the party that cares about God and guns.
Every once in awhile the rich will dangle a carrot for the poor by telling them that they'll be rich one day too so they should for lower taxes on rich people.
Where they agree is that anyone who disagrees with them (especially thos of another color) is the real problem.
I guess then there are two distinct democrat parties as well. The leadership which is rich and only care about maintaining their wealth and the poor. The leadership keeps telling the poor that as long as you keep them in power they will give you things and make your life better. You'll still be poor but you'll have more stuff.
And yes, where they agree is that both sides will do whatever they can to stay in the leadership, stay wealthy, and stay in power.
This is exactly what the Republicans want to do with our children!
YES! This is just like they think. Wow.
The Rich will just get richer, just how they want it!
Thank you for a demonstration of how a blind partisan thinks - or actually doesn't bother to think.
NOT TRUE,,,this is what NEWT would like to do with your children, Not the Republicans....Newt is trying to destroy the Republican party....Newt is an unethical man...he knows that we, the typical everyday Republican will not back him because he is a criminal...he should stop using the title Republican...he is a racist idiot and a member of the Tea Party...True Republican party member believe in family.
sherobes: You do a good job of over exaggerating which means you have no substantive comment to make.
What will be really tragic is when the price of gold collapses - and it will. So much gold is being taken out of the ground, all over the world, even from old abandoned mines here in the USA.
The cost of production is a mere $350 an ounce in some mines. Says a lot about the inflated nature of current pricing.
The price of gold is based on demand, not some inherent value of it. Demand is based on FEAR and UNCERTAINTY in world markets, regarding debts and the economy.
With each piece of economic good news, however, the price of gold will get hammered. If you invest in gold, you have to hope that the EU dissolves and that the US defaults on its debts.
A similar thing happened in 1980. The price of gold skyrocketed, based on FEAR of economic meltdown. The price dropped and remained flat for 20 years. If you bought gold then, you'd just be breaking even now.
Funny thing is, coming off the Real Estate Bubble (and the tech bubble before then) you'd think people would figure this out.
I know a Glenn Beck fan who is behind on his mortgage, but investing in gold. A fool and his money!