THE DARK LIVES

-SANIYA GOYAL AND VIDHI KUMAWAT

The mining industry might make wealth and power for a few men and women, but the many would always be smashed and battered beneath its giant treads. Mining is part and parcel of the economy of any nation. It is a major contributor to GDP in mineral abundant countries like India. It employs around one million jobs worldwide every year. The gravest concern about it is that half of the people employed in this industry are children from age group 5 to 18, employed to work for 12-15 hours for less than $2 per day. Africa and Asia have a high prevalence of child labour in the mining industry and it employs the highest number of child labourers.

According to the estimation of the World Labour Organisation, there are 215 million children who work in exploitative conditions out of which 115 million children work in hazardous conditions. According to an interview conducted by the International Labour Organization with 220 boys and girls working in mines in Nepal, 60% of the children said that they were injured while working.

Children working in the mining industry have their lives always at risk. Children working in the mining industry get exposed to various chemicals which are extremely detrimental to their health. Children work under dangerous conditions regularly without any access to school, health, and other basic amenities. They work to sustain themselves as their families are unable to afford even basic necessities. In mines, children crawl through narrow, cramped, and poorly made tunnels risking their lives to fatal accidents and injuries. There is a constant risk due to collapsing of mining walls, falling rock, explosions, and usage of equipment which is designed for adults. A large proportion of children get buried under the debris which descends from the roof of the mine, also called a collapse earthquake.

Rat hole mining in the north-eastern state of Meghalaya and mica mines in Jharkhand accounts for three-fourth of child fatalities in India. After a PIL filed by Impulse NGO in National Green Tribunal (NGT), rat hole mining was banned in Meghalaya. Despite the ban, rat hole mining takes place where children are also employed through trafficking from Bangladesh, Nepal, and other neighbouring countries. our constitution also forbids the employment of children under the age of 14 in dangerous jobs like factories and mines. Notwithstanding this right against exploitation, children are still working in mines. It is just a mere law scribed in our constitution which is not practised. This is the biggest loophole in our democracy, laws just exist in the constitution and not in reality.

You may be for or against it, you may use it every day or for special occasions, or you may not even use it at all, but one thing remains certain: these small tubes can make you a totally different person. Makeup can give you the confidence you need, and hide signs of tiredness, skin flaws, and even scars. But do you know the secret ingredient in makeup products which gives you lustre? Mica is a key ingredient in all makeup products. Most of the makeup companies across the globe import mica from India. Jharkhand has one of the largest mica concentrations in the world and the mica gets exported to all the global makeup companies. knowingly or unknowingly we use makeup products, which comes from mines where children have died.

These children work in order to help their families so that they do not sleep with an empty stomach. Many of the mining sites in India are owned by affluent politicians and when these politicians are asked about these illegal mining sites, they simulate to be unaware of the ongoing child labour. There were many documentaries made on the plight of the children working in the mining sector and the only thing they wished for was education, which is the right of each and every child under the age of 14, known as Right to Education, which provides free and compulsory education and it falls under the category of fundamental rights. despite their fundamental right which is constitutionally guaranteed there is no authority to check if there is any infringement of this right. Activists like Hasina Kharbhih (anti-trafficking activist) and Nagasayee Malathy (executive director, Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation) have rescued more than 3,000 children. It is high time that we bring such people into the limelight and pay heed to the issues which can improvise the lives of those who do not have adequate means for survival instead of augmenting issues just for the sake of amusement.