Tanzania struggles to get child labourers out of gold mines and into school

Three years ago, 14-year-old Julius left his family near the聽lakeside city of Mwanza, Tanzania, to try his luck mining gold.

Today Julius is in no hurry to leave, despite having one of聽the riskiest jobs on a chaotic mine site – handling mercury each聽day with his bare hands.

“It’s good work. I’m paid well,” Julius, who only wanted to聽use his first name, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation, wearing聽an orange T-shirt and skinny jeans coated with聽red dirt.

Julius, now 17, said he has been working with mercury for聽three years – but no one had ever told him it was dangerous.

There are more than four million child labourers in Tanzania聽aged between five and 17, according to a government survey released聽last year in conjunction with the International Labour聽Organization. That’s roughly a third of the country’s children.

More than three million are doing hazardous jobs, including聽at illegal mines like the one near Nyaligongo in northern聽Tanzania where they are exposed to mercury, heavy dust聽and work聽long shifts without safety gear.

The Tanzanian government is aware of the problem but has聽struggled to keep children out of small, unlicensed mines.

Its laws do not allow children under 14 to work聽and聽hazardous work is not permitted for children over 14. Tanzania聽has signed all major international conventions on child labour聽and introduced its own laws to prevent the worst child labour.

But not everyone knows of the child labour laws, including聽families and local officials.

Government workers tasked with enforcing the laws lack the聽staff and funds for inspections, let alone pursue prosecutions.

“In Tanzania we have a good law and strategy to eliminate聽all kinds of child labour, but the problem here is who is going聽to implement this at the local level?” said Gerald Ng’ong’a,聽executive director of聽Rafiki Social Development Organization
(SDO), an NGO that works on child labour in northern Tanzania.

“Local officials don’t have enough information about the law聽and how to protect children.”

In Lake Victoria’s gold belt, where gold has been extracted聽since the 1890s, licensed and unlicensed small mines operate聽with major mining firms close by.

The scrappy “artisanal” mines provide a crucial source of聽income to people outside Tanzania’s cities, but like the mining聽site at Nyaligongo, many operate without government licences.

The majority of children working in gold mines are employed聽by individuals running these unlicensed mines, observers say.聽They are among the worst exploited of the mines’ workers,聽typically earning the equivalent of about聽$1聽a day.

“Pit owners employ children because they’re cheap labour,”聽said Ng’ong’a.

Legal or not, the lure of the mines – and the harsh poverty聽of the farming communities around them –聽keep children coming.

Brothers Petromos and Mayalamos, who are 12 and 16, left聽their village outside Mwanza because they heard there was good聽money to be made at this mine.

“The work is difficult,” said Mayalamos. “But I can only聽leave this place once I’ve earned enough.”

Nyaligongo village relies on gold to survive.聽On the village’s main street, cramped shops sell vegetables,聽SIM cards聽and lunch to off-duty miners. Middlemen purchase gold聽from miners to sell in the closest town, Kahama, where it is聽sold on in bigger cities like Mwanza and Dar es Salaam.

At the primary school down the road, teachers are less聽impressed with mining’s promise of a good future.

A poster on the school office wall is a testament to the聽number of children who leave to work when they are old enough.聽This year, in Class 1, there are 236 students aged six and seven聽while in Class 7 there are only 40 students aged 13 and 14.

“I feel very frustrated when children leave and go to the聽mines instead of going on to secondary school,” said Mabula聽Kafuku, the education officer for the ward. “They don’t even聽have enough knowledge to mine safely.”

Children dropping out of school is a nationwide problem in聽Tanzania and major impediment to the government’s aspiration to聽become a middle-income nation by 2025. A recent聽Human Rights聽Watch report聽found in 2016, more than five million children aged聽between 7 and 17 were out of school across the country.

For government workers tasked with inspecting mines for聽health, safety and labour violations, enforcing the law at the聽far-flung informal mines sprinkled around the Lake Victoria聽region is an onerous task.

Masasila, the village secretary, cannot recall ever seeing聽inspectors at the mining site near Nyaligongo.

“If you have children working in remote areas, you need a聽budget to visit. We don’t have such things,” said Hadija Hersi,聽a regional labour officer based in Mwanza.

“That’s why you have NGOs stepping in to intervene.”

Indeed, several non-governmental organisations, including聽Terre des Hommes Netherlands, have been trying to get child聽workers back in school and help families develop alternate聽income sources to wean them off their wages.

Since 2014, Terre des Hommes Netherlands, working with聽Rafiki SDO, has managed to help more than 725 children leave the聽mines. In Geita, another nearby gold mining area, UK-based聽笔濒补苍听滨苍迟别谤苍补迟颈辞苍补濒聽has helped 12,000 children withdraw from聽small-scale mining work and is trying to reach another 11,600.

But as long as people are struggling to find work outside聽Tanzania’s cities, there is only so much NGOs can do.

At the mine, Nyanjige Mwendesha looks on as her three聽children, ages 10, 12聽and 15, sit on the red dusty ground,聽smashing up rocks with small metal hammers in the midday sun.

Mwendesha brought her family to work here after there wasn’t聽enough rain on her farm this year. The family needed the money.

“When it starts to rain, I’ll go back to the farm,” she聽said.