Women and child miners

The ILO report estimates that as many as 4 million of the world's 13 million small-scale miners are female, though many work part-time. In Asia the proportion of women workers is less than 10 per cent with most of their activities limited to sorting, packaging and preparation of materials for shipping.

In Latin America the proportion is somewhat higher, with women accounting for anywhere from 10-20 per cent of the workforce. In Africa the participation of women is even higher, reaching 60 per cent in some mining areas.

Women in Africa are actively involved in processing of raw materials, including crushing, grinding, sieving, washing and transporting of minerals. In some mining centres, these activities are even dominated by women who undertake these activities in the home, exposing entire families to high risks from silicosis and mercury poisoning. Although women rarely work underground, they can be found panning for gold or raking the surface of deposits in search of small amounts of raw material.

In Latin America women undertake similar activities and women and children can often be found scavenging for ore and gemstones. As many as 8,000 women work in the gold mining areas north of La Paz, Bolivia in particularly harsh conditions. These women, called palliris, collect and sort mine waste from processing plants, which they sell to intermediaries, take to processing plants or wash themselves to extract small amounts of metal. Some women work in alluvial pits up to 20 metres deep extracting metal-bearing sand with picks and shovels. Their wages are low and often their work is unpaid, done simply to enhance the earning capacity of their husbands.

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of children work in small-scale mines, often in intolerable conditions. The hazards they face - from inundation, cave-ins, tuberculosis, dust, mercury and other chemicals - are the same as those faced by adults, but the risks to immature bodies are much more severe.

In mines and quarries around the world, small children can be seen scavenging for materials, breaking rocks with hammers, washing ore, sieving it or transporting it. Children as young as 9 are used to set explosives, fill sacks with ore, transport them on their backs and load them into carts. At or around the age of 12, the presence of children in underground mines tends to increase and many begin to do the same work as adults. Most often, children's work in mining is undertaken simply to enhance family earnings or to earn just enough food to live.

In some cases their small size increases risk, for example, in a gold rush, where competition to find a vein of ore is frantic, children need smaller tunnels than adults. But the risks in such conditions are extremely high due to the haphazard nature of the workings and the lack of regard for basic safety precautions.

Examples of child labour in small-scale mining are abundant. In Guinea, boys of 14 to 16 years of age work in diamond mines, usually at very low pay, digging gravel in trenches, removing water with buckets and diverting streams and rivers using sandbags. Surveys undertaken by the ILO in Madagascar and Burkina Faso found hundreds of child labourers in small-scale mines and quarries, many working as much as 10 hours per day alongside their impoverished family members.

In Niger, it is estimated that as many as 250,000 children work full-time or part-time in small-scale mining that is carried out at a subsistence level. Many of the children are descendants of slaves who work in trona production (a product used in cattle feed) under conditions of dire poverty. Other mined products include salt, gypsum, gold and construction materials.

In the Mollehuaca region of Peru, children working underground are exposed to very harsh conditions, doing much the same work as adults in 12-hour shifts. Many children work in stone mills. Levels of mercury contamination are high and adults and children alike suffer from respiratory and other mine-related illnesses.

In the Philippines, children in the Sibutad region work carrying ore in 28 kg sacks (62 lbs.) from gold mines to processing centres; others are involved in ore processing, exposing them to mercury contamination; some work underground carrying food or water to the miners.

At the Mererani mining sight in Tanzania, agile youngsters aged 12-15 work as so-called "snake boys" fetching and carrying materials in and out of underground mines, scavenging for small gemstones, placing explosives in confined places and running errands for adult miners. Their small size allows them to reach places inaccessible adults and to operate at higher speed, but the heavy loads, cramped conditions and unhealthy, to awkward working conditions take a heavy toll on the development of snake boys.