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.the Citizen
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