Human Rights Watch senior researcher on children’s rights Juliane
Kippenberg speaks at a press conference in Dar es Salaam yesterday
during the launch of a report on children working in small-scale gold
mining in Tanzania. Others are Tanzania Children’s Forum coordinator
Eric Guga and Janine Morna, a research fellow with Human Rights Watch.
PHOTO | AIKA KIMARO
In Summary
It could be one of those negative reports compiled by non-governmental organisations for their survival.
Dar es Salaam. Thousands of children risk
serious injury and even death in small-scale gold mining in Tanzania,
Human Rights Watch says in a new report released yesterday.
But the government swiftly queried the accuracy of
the findings, saying such reports were meant to please financial
backers of Western NGOs.
The report, released at a news conference in Dar
es Salaam, documents how children dig and drill in deep, unstable pits,
work underground for shifts of up to 24 hours, transport and crush heavy
loads of gold ore and process gold using toxic mercury.
Working in mines also harms children’s schooling
and places girls at risk of sexual exploitation, according to the
96-page report titled Toxic Toll: Child Labour and Mercury Exposure in
Tanzania’s Small-Scale Gold Mines. The report is based on interviews
with over 200 people, including children.
Contacted for comment, Energy and Minerals
minister Sospeter Muhongo said he had not seen the report, but added
that he doubted its accuracy.
“It could be one of those negative reports compiled by non-governmental organisations for their survival,” Prof Muhongo said.
He said he had expected Human Rights Watch to
submit the report to mining experts in his ministry before releasing it
to the media. “The international media have been calling me since
morning asking me on the same issue. They (Human Rights Watch) should
have submitted the report to the ministry for discussion. I would have
sent experts on a fact-finding mission to areas visited by the
organisation,” Prof Muhongo said.
He added that negative reports compiled by Western
NGOs were aimed at frustrating government efforts to attract more
investment to the mining sector.
“And since the Chinese are involved in investment
in small-scale mining one may conclude that such reports are intended to
discourage Chinese investors.”
Human Rights Watch says it visited 11 mining sites
in Geita, Shinyanga and Mbeya regions and interviewed more than 200
people, including 61 children aged between eight and 17, involved in
small-scale gold mining.
The report says children risk injury from pit
collapses and accidents with tools as well as long-term health damage
from exposure to mercury, breathing dust and carrying heavy loads.
“Tanzanian boys and girls are lured to the gold
mines in the hope of a better life, but find themselves stuck in a
dead-end cycle of danger and despair,” said Ms Janine Morna, a
children’s rights research fellow at Human Rights Watch.
She added: “Tanzania and donors need to get these children out
of the mines and into school or vocational training.” A video clip shown
during the news conference showed a 15-year-old boy from Geita Region,
whose life has been turned upside down by his involvement in mining.
“It’s difficult to combine mining and school. I
don’t get time to go through what I have learnt. I’m always thinking
about mining...it distracts me. I often fell sick and miss classes. My
entire body aches,” he said.
Human Rights Watch said in a statement that the
World Bank and other donors should support efforts to end child labour
in mining and reduce the exposure of children and adults to mercury.
The World Bank’s $55 million (about Sh88 billion) support for the mining sector does not directly address child labour.
The report says the employment of children in
dangerous mining work was one of the worst forms of child labour under
international agreements to which Tanzania is a party.
“On paper, Tanzania has strong laws against child
labour in mining, but the government has done far too little to enforce
them,” said Ms Morna, adding: “Labour inspectors need to visit both
licenced and unlicenced mines regularly, and ensure employers face
sanctions for using child labour.”
The report says child labourers as well as
children living near mining sites are at risk of mercury poisoning that
attacks the central nervous system and can cause lifelong disability.
Miners, including children, mix mercury with
crushed ore and burn the resulting gold-mercury amalgam to release the
gold, exposing them to poisonous mercury fumes.
Ms Morna urged Tanzania to ratify the Minamata
Convention on Mercury, which has been named after the site in Japan of a
mercury poisoning disaster half a century ago. The Convention will be
adopted in October near Minamata.
She said Tanzania helped craft the new global
treaty to reduce mercury exposure worldwide, which 140 countries agreed
on in January 2013.
“Tanzania helped bring about the Minamata
Convention on Mercury. To protect the future of its own people and of
its own growing mining industry, it needs to take the lead to protect
its children by monitoring, testing and treating them for mercury
exposure and getting them out of the mines.”
source: The citizen
source: The citizen
