Kids working in African gold mines

[Dale_M]

In a yearlong investigation, The Associated Press visited six of these bush mines in three West African countries and interviewed more than 150 child miners. AP journalists watched as child-mined gold was bought by itinerant traders. And, through interviews and customs documents, The AP tracked gold from these mines on a 3,000-mile journey to Mali’s capital city and then on to Switzerland, where it enters the world market.

Most bush mines are little more than holes in the ground, but there are thousands of them in Africa, South America and Asia. Together, they produce a fifth of the world’s gold, according to United Nations reports. And wherever you find bush mines, these reports and mine experts say, you also find child labor.

If you wear a gold ring on your finger, write with a gold-tipped fountain pen or have gold in your investment portfolio, chances are good your life is connected to these children.

news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080810/ap_on_re_af/toiling_for_gold;_ylt=AkBfyjWOpDW3E._jIztVI0oUewgF

 

[strngrnrth]

Sick. Gold mining is too hazardous for kids. It’s horrible.
As a side observation, good to see AP’s still in touch with regular folks like you and me, with all our gold-tipped fountain pens.

 

[Swan]

Thanks for posting this. People need to stop and think about where the things we covet come from. I think diamond mining is pretty indefensible as well. Yet how many people stop to think when they want gold and diamonds? Not to mention clothing and household goods made in sweatshops and the conditions under which much coffee, tea and chocolate and farmed (Catholic Exchange is great program that offers fair trade for small coffee, tea and chocolate producers, BTW).

To truly be responsible consumers and to truly work toward social justice we have to ask ourselves some really hard questions. I’ve seen so many threads on the “occasion of sin” mostly regarding sexual morality. What about issues like these?

 

[cynic]

To truly be responsible consumers and to truly work toward social justice we have to ask ourselves some really hard questions. I’ve seen so many threads on the “occasion of sin” mostly regarding sexual morality. What about issues like these?

It’s different if it has to do with money

 

[strngrnrth]

Not to mention clothing and household goods made in sweatshops and the conditions under which much coffee, tea and chocolate and farmed (Catholic Exchange is great program that offers fair trade for small coffee, tea and chocolate producers, BTW).

Where do you get fair trade chocolate, outside of high-priced natural stores? What kind of seal should I be looking for? I usually grab chocolate when it’s on sale. Maybe I could do without chocolate but coffee and tea? I sure hope not.

 

[ribozyme]

Wow! Randall Parker… thanks for stating the obvious!!! Rapidly growing populations will put stress on the biosphere and other animals. In addition, more people just dilutes the natural resources, and even if they are exploited by a “socialist” government in Africa or private “investors,” it seems that the wealth from these resources will be concentrated to Western (or Chinese) investors or kleptocracies. So this will yield a higher Gini coefficient because it does not seem likely that natural resource wealth will enrich most Africans. Lack of capital investment precludes job opportunities too.

It seems to me that almost no one (I am not accusing anyone specifically) on these forums seriously wants poverty to be eradicated and living standards to be improved for most of the world. Many on this forum see poverty as a “opportunity” for private charity and a chance to show that we love our neighbor. As for myself, I simply do not see anything positive about it so I only see it as a problem causing immense human misery. I cannot see this with rose-colored glasses. More poverty most certainly isn’t a good thing at all.

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=258091

It doesn’t seem that natural resource wealth is significantly improving quality of life in Africa. (Instead, it seems that the acquistion of mineral wealth from Africa will be seen as a zero-sum game between oriental and oxidental.)

 

[ribozyme]

occidental*

What else would one expert from a world with a gini coefficent of .70.

 

[Caesar517]

It seems to me that almost no one (I am not accusing anyone specifically) on these forums seriously wants poverty to be eradicated and living standards to be improved for most of the world. Many on this forum see poverty as a “opportunity” for private charity and a chance to show that we love our neighbor. As for myself, I simply do not see anything positive about it so I only see it as a problem causing immense human misery. I cannot see this with rose-colored glasses. More poverty most certainly isn’t a good thing at all.

Just because few people agree with your methods doesn’t mean we don’t share your goal. I don’t think poverty can be eradicated, but I do think we should work towards that end. The key difference is that I think redistribution of wealth makes everyone poor.

 

[Dale_M]

The key difference is that I think redistribution of wealth makes everyone poor.

So the question is, how can we make help the people of sub-Saharan Africa better off? Presumably children are working in gold mines because they have few other options. What can we, in the developed world, do to help them have better opportunities?

 

[ribozyme]

So the question is, how can we make help the people of sub-Saharan Africa better off? Presumably children are working in gold mines because they have few other options. What can we, in the developed world, do to help them have better opportunities?

I do not see how increasing population size will help them; all it does it simply dilute the natural resources. To reiterate, it is unlikely that natural resource wealth will benefit Africans since it will be pocketed by Western or Chinese investors or corrupt kleptocracies.

I think subsizing access to television with soap operas is one way to control population without direct coercion.

Preeti Aroon reports on a Foreign Policy blog that soap operas seem to cut down the fertility rate.

Many factors account for the drop in Brazilian fertility, but one recent study identified a factor most people probably wouldn’t consider: soap operas (novelas).

…

During the past few decades, the vast majority of the population, of all social classes, has regularly tuned into the evening showings. The study, conducted by Eliana La Ferrara of Italy’s Bocconi University and Alberto Chong and Suzanne Duryea of the Inter-American Development Bank, analyzed novelas aired from 1965 to 1999 in the top two time slots and found that they depict families that are much smaller than those in the real Brazil. Seventy-two percent of leading female characters age 50 or below had no children at all, and 21 percent had just one child. Hence, the authors hypothesized that the soap operas could be acting as a kind of birth control.

Using census data from 1970 to 1991 and data on the entry of Rede Globo into different markets, the researchers found that women living in areas that received Globo’s broadcast signal had significantly lower fertility.

The researchers controlled for many factors that might have biased the results.

Think about this. Extremely poor countries in Africa have very high fertility rates and they are stuck in a Malthusian trap. How to fix this problem? Subsidize access to TV and movies for the poorest people in Africa.

Nonetheless, with total fertility rates of 7.38 in Mali and 7.37 in Niger (as of mid-2007), the resultant growth in these countries’ populations is expected to be phenomenal over the next few years, unless growth rates and total fertility rates drop. For example, Mali’s 2007 population is approximately 12 million. With its high total fertility rate per woman, Mali is expected to grow to more than 15 million (a 3 million or 25% increase) by 2015! Mali’s 2007 growth rate of 2.7 means a doubling time of just 26 years. Other countries with high total fertility rates include Afghanistan at 6.64, Yemen at 6.49, and Samoa at 4.21.

Check out this list of high fertility rate countries that need soap operas.

Western aid agencies should be funded to put up satellite TV over Africa. The TVs can be delivered with solar panels to villages all over Africa.

futurepundit.com/archives/005279.html

Also promoting food security (will be difficult after the post peak oil epoch) and sufficient infrastructure will be integral. I do not trust African governments to do it; maybe some NGOs should be left to do those tasks.

 

[CoboltBlue]

Thanks for posting this. People need to stop and think about where the things we covet come from. I think diamond mining is pretty indefensible as well. Yet how many people stop to think when they want gold and diamonds? Not to mention clothing and household goods made in sweatshops and the conditions under which much coffee, tea and chocolate and farmed (Catholic Exchange is great program that offers fair trade for small coffee, tea and chocolate producers, BTW).

To truly be responsible consumers and to truly work toward social justice we have to ask ourselves some really hard questions. I’ve seen so many threads on the “occasion of sin” mostly regarding sexual morality. What about issues like these?

I agree…have you ever seen the movie BLOOD DIAMOND…it was a very factual account of the ‘gangs’ within the population who go through villages and kill anyone they don’t want and take the healthy men and male children to for them to mine for diamonds. The story evolvs around one young boy who is forced to do this and…You must watch and see!!! You will talk about it for days. And they suggest at the end of the movie that we should ask where the diamon we are buying was mined from…the seller should be able to tell you.

 

[Swan]

Where do you get fair trade chocolate, outside of high-priced natural stores? What kind of seal should I be looking for? I usually grab chocolate when it’s on sale. Maybe I could do without chocolate but coffee and tea? I sure hope not.

Check out:

equalexchange.com/product-info

Equal Exchange (not Catholic Exchange as I said above - sorry) is an ecumenical organization that deals in fair trade tea, coffee, cocoa, chocolate, sugar, almonds, pecans, etc. I buy coffee from them by the case. They have great fund raising programs as well.

 

[Caesar517]

I do not see how increasing population size will help them; all it does it simply dilute the natural resources.

So if you were the only person in the world, you would have 100% of the world’s natural resources; but would you be able to make use of them? Increasing population brings economic growth – Econ 101. That is true up until the point when an environment cannot sustain the required level of resource consumption. i don’t think any of this is Africa’s problem, though. I think Africa’s biggest problem is corrupt tryannical governments who use hunger to rule.

 

[rwoehmke]

Most Americans do not know or remember that we had children working in mines as late as the 1930’s in our own country. FDR’s wife Eleanor Roosevelt was instrumental in getting child labor laws passed. Pray and work that the third world countries will eventually follow suit. I think even in China and some other Asian countries child labor is still rife.

 

[geezerbob]

A couple of comments concerning this thread. First, after carefully reading the entire article, which some posters obviously haven’t done, nowhere is there any indication of foreign investment. In Africa, it’s all about the poor enslaving the poorer, with no help from the greedy Asians or westerners. As appalling as the situation is, only those at the top of the African pyramid are getting much more than a basic existence from their efforts, although some (buyers) have it easier than others (miners). The large mines, which do have foreign investment, do not employ children, so that argument about foreign investment being responsible for child miners is totally false.

Manufactured diamonds are now available which are indistinguishable from mined ones, and at a fraction of the cost (about 1/3 if I remember correctly). If the hold the DeBeers group has on the diamond market is ever totally broken and some of the regulations it has managed to get in place to protect its profits are dropped, we may one day see the end of diamond mining.

 

[pentecostbaby]

So the question is, how can we make help the people of sub-Saharan Africa better off? Presumably children are working in gold mines because they have few other options. What can we, in the developed world, do to help them have better opportunities?

That’s easy to start with. Go to www.kiva.org.
Kiva is a microlending organization. What that means is this: they find people in the third world whose lives and livelihoods would be vastly improved if they could, say, save enough to buy one more cow, or a better oven to bake bread for sale, or a bike to make deliveries. Then YOU go onto Kiva and pick people to lend 25$ to. The loans have a set payback rate. Kiva has an over 99% payback rate on their loans. You can make a HUGE difference this way - you aren’t giving fish, you’re helping a man fish and sell that fish to send his kids to school.

 

[ribozyme]

A couple of comments concerning this thread. First, after carefully reading the entire article, which some posters obviously haven’t done, nowhere is there any indication of foreign investment. In Africa, it’s all about the poor enslaving the poorer, with no help from the greedy Asians or westerners. As appalling as the situation is, only those at the top of the African pyramid are getting much more than a basic existence from their efforts, although some (buyers) have it easier than others (miners). The large mines, which do have foreign investment, do not employ children, so that argument about foreign investment being responsible for child miners is totally false.

Manufactured diamonds are now available which are indistinguishable from mined ones, and at a fraction of the cost (about 1/3 if I remember correctly). If the hold the DeBeers group has on the diamond market is ever totally broken and some of the regulations it has managed to get in place to protect its profits are dropped, we may one day see the end of diamond mining.

I didn’t saying anything foreign investment employing children; all I said was that the benefits from natural resources are usually privatized but never socialized. Do you have any evidence natural resource wealth will significantly improve the quality of life for most Africans?