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SAP 2.78/WP.137
1. Child labour in small-scale mines in Niger
Niger, a country located at the heart of the Sahel, covers an area of 1,267,000 sq km, two-thirds of which are desert. Depending on the area of the country, the rainy season lasts three or four months (June to September). The country has very few water resources, with only one river that passes through it for nearly 500 km in the west, and lakes and goulbis in the east and south. In terms of communication infrastructure, although Niger has a dense road network, air traffic is virtually zero, while rail and sea transport systems are non-existent.
The population is estimated at nearly 9.5 million with a labour force participation rate of 52 per cent, mainly involved in the primary sector (78.20 per cent). The salaried population comprises 2.47 per cent of the total. The informal sector on its own accounts for 70.70 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP), which was estimated at 1,017 billion CFA Francs in 1996.
These various data highlight the enclavement of the country and the difficulties facing the vast majority of Niger's population, in particular children under 15 who account for 48.50 per cent of the total population. The school attendance rate was estimated at 27 per cent in 1996.
Such a situation of grinding poverty -- 73% below the poverty line -- has led to the development of small-scale economic activities, including small-scale mining, which is the largest activity despite low profits and high risk. These small-scale mining activities (artisanal and semi-industrial) have expanded to allow mutual survival. In the artisanal mining sector, the population is engaged in the mining of gold, gypsum, limestone, salt, trona, construction materials (e.g., gravel, sand and laterite), phosphate, cassiterite and coal.
These activities involve adults as well as children, and take place in atrocious conditions. The income derived from such activities is hardly enough for those working to survive because, in some instances, merchants keep the largest part.
The prospecting that began a half century ago has led to discoveries of geological deposits throughout the country. In some cases this has resulted in mining, primarily of uranium, tin and coal in the north of the country, limestone and gypsum in the central region, salt and trona in many areas, gold in the Liptako region (in the west near the Burkina Faso border) and construction materials throughout the country.
Interest in other deposits such as phosphates and iron in the west of the country has led to feasibility or pre-feasibility studies. In all, some 150 occurrences and mineral deposits have been catalogued across the country. Iron, copper, salt and construction materials were mined well before recorded prospecting activities. Artisanal workings sometimes show the traces of previous operations, notably copper. The most recent operations concern cassiterite (tin ore) in the north, with several sites recorded.
Most mining in Niger has been artisanal, apart from the most recent activities, i.e., uranium (two mines), coal (one mine), limestone (one quarry) and cassiterite (one semi-industrial mine). Uranium was dominant between 1971 and 1997. It accounted for the majority of exports throughout this period, over all sectors.
Despite this, more people make their living directly in small-scale mines than in the industrial sector and artisanal mining will continue, although it needs reorganizing to ensure better safety.
Iron and copper. Traces of artisanal mining activities have been discovered in Niger's Liptako Gourma and Aïr regions.
Tin. Among known operations, the oldest involves cassiterite mining, which began in 1948. Semi-artisanal operations are carried out at several sites, primarily Agalak, Tarouadji, Guissat and El Mécki. Several other sites in the region have shown potential, including In-Tainok, Elabag, Adrar Chiret and Tamgak.
Phosphates. Given the high price of industrial products for soil improvement, the Niger Union of Cooperatives and Credits (UNCC) began working the phosphate nodules in In-Akker and Akawawas in the Tahoua region, in the centre of the country. UNCC's operations lasted from 1975 to 1984, and were stopped due to high costs.
Gypsum. To supplement their daily needs, the inhabitants of the Madaoua and Bouza region in the centre of the country began mining gypsum in the 1970s; they then sold it to the cement company.
Gold. Gold panning became more prevalent in Niger from 1984, a year of stark famine. From 1984 to 1993, the number of panners varied from year to year, and was frequently linked to the success of the harvest. Several thousand panners are working in the Liptako Gourma region to extract and process the gold ore and sell the fruits of their labour. Several gold-panning sites have been registered but it must be said that no site is permanent as these miners are very mobile. The Mines Administration does not have the resources to register all the different sites in the Liptako region, although several dozen of them exist.
Most gold panning takes place in the Liptako, although it has also been carried out in southern Maradi (in the southern-central area of the country), as detailed in the Minerals Plan of the Republic of Niger.
Construction materials. The construction materials sector is completely unregulated in the sense that most operations are illegal and take place across the country. The lack of human and material resources is the main reason for this: the Mines Administration cannot cover the whole country.
In conclusion, small-scale mining is primarily a reflection of the economic situation. For some minerals, e.g., tin, gypsum and salt, it has become a lucrative and permanent activity. Hundreds of thousands of people work in small-scale mines and quarries -- men, women and children are involved in all of them. The proportion of young workers depends on the type of operation and the region concerned. More children are involved in the less arduous operations, which explains the smaller number of children observed in gold panning.
Cassiterite. There are several sites in the north of the country, but no estimate of reserves has been made.
Gold. Several dozen sites are located across the Niger Liptako region, and there is one site in the south in Maradi, close to the Nigerian border. Gold occurrences have been catalogued in the north of the country and in the département of Zinder. These occurrences have not been worked.
Gypsum. There are sites in Madaoua and Bouza in the département of Tahoua. Several sites have been registered. The product is sold to the Niger Cement Company.
Construction materials. Sites are located across the country.
In legal terms, no operations can be carried out without an artisanal operations authorization, an operations permit (small-scale mining) or an authorization to open and operate a known quarry as specified under articles 9, 15, 32, 45 and 71 of the "Mining Law" ordinance number 93-16 and dated 2 March 1993.
The framework for working the minerals in small-scale mines is contained in this ordinance and further clarified in decree number 93-44/PM/MMEI/A dated 12 March 1993, which stipulates the scope of application of the Mining Law.
Artisanal operations may be carried out by companies, associations and cooperatives as well as physical persons, provided that they hold an artisanal operations authorization (and physical persons are at least 18 years old). Physical persons are given an individual card instead of the artisanal operations authorization.
The artisanal operations authorization is valid for two years, renewable indefinitely; the individual card is valid for six months.
The products of artisanal operations may be sold provided that a sales permit is held. There are no restrictions on the sale of products from small-scale mines; the same applies to quarries.
Artisanal operations are liable to an operations tax of 3% cent and a sales tax of 2.5% of the products' value. The opening and working of quarries are subject to an extraction tax of 250 CFA Francs per cubic metre. There is no sales tax.
Small-scale mining is liable to a fixed charge, a tax on area worked, mining royalty, registration rights, taxes on industrial and commercial profits, value added tax, and other taxes and duties.
Artisanal mining, and quarries appear to be liable to fewer taxes and duties than small-scale mining.
In addition to the Mines Administration which considers the applications for authorizations and permits, and approves or rejects them, each département has a management team whose task, among others, is to supervise and oversee mining activities. It also gives the workers advice and directives.
As well as the management teams at département level, teams at the département and arrondissement (administrative district) level lead the task of supervising and overseeing the sites and advising workers. However, most artisanal operations are carried out without authorization.
Given the miserable situation in which many people live, the Administration has turned a blind eye to these activities. However, given the impoverishment of the mineral base, to the detriment of the population, a way must be found to collect taxes and duties from these operations.
This study analyses the problem of child labour in small-scale mines, with particular reference to small-scale artisanal mines, in four locations: trona in Boboye; salt in Gaya; gypsum in Madaoua; and gold panning at sites in Tchalkam and Taboura in the Liptako Gourma region.
The study aims to:
Trona and salt have been selected because they are mined or quarried in most of Niger and therefore involve many workers, including women and children. Gypsum has been chosen because it is used for the country's only cement works. Small-scale artisanal operations are used, but in a formal and legal manner, in contrast to the other three substances. Gold has been selected because of its importance in the Liptako subregion (covering Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso) but also, mainly, because of the significant risks that gold panning entails.
The site studied is located about 2 km to the south-west of the town of Birni Ngaouré, a district town in the département of Dosso, in the west of Niger. The Boboye region (district) covers 4,423 sq km. Birni Ngaouré is 110 km to the south-east of Niamey, 29 km east in the north of Dosso. Access is easy as a metalled road (RN 1) goes through the town.
Two ethnic groups make up the population of the Birni Ngaouré district: the Djerma and the Peulhs. The population is currently estimated at 293,293; its main activities are agriculture and animal husbandry. The proportion of the population with access to a health facility is 39% and the school attendance rate is 15%.
Trona mining is a secondary activity reserved mainly for a class of the descendants of former slaves who have inherited this right from their parents. The custom goes back to the colonial period before the 20th century when traditional slavery was prevalent. However, abject poverty also sometimes forces some "free" families-- those who are not descendants of slaves -- to ignore the taboo, swallow their pride and carry out this practice.
Besides the locals, people from neighbouring regions such as Tagazar (Balleyara) also work at the trona sites. The site visited has 120 families with 600 workers, including 360 children under 18, for an average family size of five people. There are estimated to be about 20 sites worked in the whole district, i.e., about 10,000 child workers.
The area containing the deposits at each site is divided among the various families, who each work it on their own behalf.
People prospect for trona deposits by looking out for the whitish colour of trona; or seeing animals, cows, that like its taste, licking the ground. Trona rises to the surface though capillary action in the dry season.
The production cycle comprises: extracting and transporting the ore; transporting the wood used as fuel for the processing; and processing the ore (figure 1). The materials used for these processes are: small dabas (scrapers) or hoes for extracting the ore; basins and sacks, of different sizes, for holding, transporting and storing the ore; axes and machetes for cutting the wood; pots for heating the trona; and millet stalks or wood to mould the final product (trona paste).
Figure 1. Trona production cycle at Foga
Extracting the trona is done simply by scraping the surface of the soil (there is no deep excavation) using small dabas (scrapers) or hoes. Such work is performed only by women and children above 8 years of age. The mineral-bearing sand, loosened up by the hoes, is then put in basins or sacks in 5-10 kg amounts and carried--always by women and children above 8 years of age--for storing in a woven, flexible wooden basket which is used as a leaching sieve. Distances may be only a few dozen metres for those with houses at the site, but may be 2-3 km for those who have not moved from their own houses.
As wood is the only heat source available, trona processing requires workers to scour for wood over 10 km away. Because of desertification, finding wood is difficult, while transporting 30-60 kg on one's head, and by foot, is extremely arduous. This means that it is the men and children over 10 years of age who generally perform this task, using axes and machetes to cut the wood.
The ore is processed by leaching. Water is poured on to the ore to produce a trona solution. This is collected in a basin (a "canary") under the leaching basket until everything has been leached, i.e., the useful ore (trona) has been separated from the gangue which is then tipped onto the ground. The trona solution collected in this way is heated (boiled) for half a day. When it is ready (a froth appears on the surface of the heated solution), the solution is transferred using a ladle into other basins ("canaries") with holes in the base (sieves). The distilled solution is then cooled by stirring it with the ladle until a pasty consistency is obtained. The paste is then moulded around millet stalks that form the centre of each mould. The resulting moulds are then dried for two weeks before being put into pairs for storing and selling.
Processing the ore is done by women and by girls aged 14-17, notably the heating, which presents a danger of scalding from the hot water and risk of fire.
At the Birni Ngaouré site, a season's production is estimated to be 4,000 moulds at an average weight of 25 kg (100 tonnes). At 3,000 CFA Francs a mould, total annual turnover is about 12 million CFA Francs for the 120 families, i.e., an average annual income of 100,000 CFA Francs (1,000 French Francs). This low level underlines the prevalence of extreme poverty among these people. The trona is sold as animal feed in the same region--Boboye--and in the neighbouring regions of Tagazar and as far away as the département of Tahoua, some 500 km away. It is also sold in neighbouring countries, mainly Nigeria.
The product is transported either on donkeys' backs, at 100 kg per load, or in carts pulled by donkeys or bulls, and is sold within the region. Cars are used for more distant regions. Such sales are generally made by intermediaries who buy the trona from the producers, and add their profit (depending on the distance the product is transported) before reselling it.
Trona is eaten by animals when mixed with bran (usually millet): in liquid form by smaller animals such as sheep and goats, and in powder form by larger animals such as cows.
During the extraction phase, a person working with their back bent with a hoe in hand, for 8-10 hours a day, endures great discomfort and can suffer from back pains. Workers may injure themselves with the hoe. They are also exposed to the vagaries of the weather, with its seasonal variations of great cold from November to February and great heat from April to June, and its daily variations of cold from 8 am to 10 am and heat from 11 am. Sandstorms are also a hazard for the eyes. The dust produced by scraping the ground also irritates the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. Transporting the ore from the site to the house where it is processed is arduous for workers who do not live at the site. Each day, if they do not have a donkey, they have to carry a 10-60 kg weight on their head for 2-3 km along rough or sandy tracks.
Processing is difficult, not only because of the handling and transport of the product in its various containers, but also, and chiefly, because of the half-day heating process (usually from 4 pm to 4 am) during which the wife or daughter (usually 14-17 years old) must not sleep. She has to oversee the heating, checking that the water does not boil over and avoiding fire risks, all of which can lead to nervous exhaustion. Smoke is released in the heating process into the room, which will undoubtedly have no means of ventilation. There is a risk of scalding from hot water whenever it is poured as well as a risk of fire, since the room is usually made out of inflammable material such as straw and millet stalks.
Given the lack of wood in the area, and given the state of the tracks used--with hazards such as steep slopes, sandy ground, pine needles, snake bites and bad weather--it is hard to find and carry the wood, so forcing people to walk 10 km or even 20 km a day.
The 360 children at the site, an average of three per family, take part in all four stages of the trona production cycle (extracting, transporting the trona, transporting the wood and processing the trona). This is in contrast to their parents' method of work, who seem to follow a division of labour: the men are more closely involved in looking for wood and the women in extracting the trona and heating it.
There is, however, a slight division of labour among children on the basis of age. The younger children, i.e., those above 8 years of age, are most frequently used for scraping the trona and transporting it; these tasks are considered less arduous. The older children, i.e., those above 14 years of age, are more involved in transporting the wood (boys) and heating the trona (girls).
Table 1. Workers in trona production by sex and activity
| Activity | Women >17 years | Men >17 years | Girls <17 years | Boys <17 years |
| Extraction | High | Low | High | High |
| Transporting ore | Medium | Low | High | High |
| Transporting wood | Low | High | Low | High |
| Heating trona | High | Nil | Medium | Nil |
| Selling trona | Low | High | Nil | Low |
Table 2. Workers in trona production by age
| Activity Age | 6-9 | 10-13 | 14-17 | Adults | Total |
| Extraction | 10 | 16 | 8 | 7 | 41 |
| Transporting ore | 10 | 15 | 10 | 17 | 52 |
| Transporting wood | 2 | 5 | 25 | 15 | 47 |
| Heating trona | 2 | 4 | 15 | 15 | 36 |
| Selling trona | 0 | 0 | 5 | 25 | 30 |
| Total | 24 | 40 | 63 | 79 | 206 |
| Per cent | 12 | 19 | 31 | 38 | 100 |
Pupils take part in the trona processes at the weekend (Saturday and Sunday) whereas children who do not attend or who have left school work every day of the week. The children work at least eight hours a day, since just extracting and transporting the trona take eight hours (8 am to 6 pm), on top of which must usually be added the heating for the girls and the hunt for wood for the boys. The children are forced by their parents to take part in trona production and receive no cash remuneration; their work is regarded as family assistance.
The children are exposed to all the risks associated with the work they carry out, both in the work and general environments. Because the children are involved in all stages of the trona production cycle (in contrast to the adults) they are more exposed to physical risks associated with the tasks they perform, e.g., dust, injury from work-tools such as hoes, axes and machetes, scalding from hot water or burns from the fire.
The major risks from the general environment include injuries to the feet from pine needles or rocks when they walk, snake and scorpion bites, injuries from pieces of wood, and very high or very low temperatures, depending on the season.
The children are subject to a double psychological shock in that they carry out this work for the simple reason that they are the descendants of former slaves and because they are forced to do so by their parents. These trona-related activities often prevent children from attending school, especially when parents have few -- one to three -- children and cannot manage without the assistance of their children to produce enough trona to survive on.
These people are in a vicious circle comprising social status (as former slaves), poverty, child labour, constraints on school attendance and therefore on development and freedom, abject poverty, and children required to work to ensure enough to live on.
There are no specific legal provisions or regulations protecting workers against the risks involved in trona production. A lack of funding has prevented mines inspectors from visiting these sites for nearly ten years. Workers at the trona sites have no group or individual protective equipment.
As in the country's other informal sectors, there are no initial or periodic medical examinations; neither is there any social security cover. Usually, when an accident or illness occurs, the patient is not moved to the medical centre, but returns home to his or her family to recover, either by resting or by undergoing traditional treatment practices. The pay-for-treatment system in operation at the Birni Ngaouré medical centre (the policy is to recover health care costs) represents a disincentive for patients to visit the centre.
The medical centre has no records of any accident at the site in 1997. At the site itself, no records of accidents or illnesses are kept.
According to a sample of 100 people (70 children and 30 adults) the number of accidents to children in 1995-97 was 21 (10% a year) and 15 to adults (16% a year). No fatal accident has been recorded over the last three years. In terms of illnesses, the figures given by the medical centre at Birni Ngaouré relate to the total population and not just those involved in trona production.
Among illnesses that could be associated with trona production, there were 6,867 consultations for children under 15, and 4,009 for those over 15 years old.
There are still no specific measures in force to ensure the safety and health of workers at the trona sites. Nothing has been done to prevent or regulate child labour, which is primarily the result of their parents' poverty and their social status (as descendants of former slaves). Given the State's current poverty and the lack of interest by funding agencies in general and national investors in particular in this sector, the ILO, in an attempt to improve conditions of work overall, and particularly those of children, could:
The village of Tounouga is 320 km south-east of Niamey, on the border with Nigeria. The Niamey-Gaya road is metalled. From Gaya, access to Tounouga is gained by a beaten earth track for 10 km to Tounga, then over trackless land for some 5 km to Tounouga. Salt mining is not restricted to members of a certain social class, in contrast to Boboye where it is limited to descendants of former slaves and those living in extreme poverty. Gaya has the most water resources in the country and so has better agriculture, with the result that its inhabitants are less poor than elsewhere.
People are engaged in salt mining when they have virtually nothing to do after the rainy period and after the three or four months, from June to September, of tending the fields of mainly millet, maize, sorghum and rice. As with trona, it is impossible to work the salt deposits in the rainy season because the rains cause the salt to seep deeper into the ground. It only comes to the surface again through evaporation, after the rains have ended.
The population consists primarily of Hausa and Djerma, the two main ethnic groups of Niger. The region's indigenous population are known as Tchianga, a mixed-race group of Hausa and Djerma. There are also Peulhs in the region, nomadic animal-grazers who have become settled.
The general population also practises animal husbandry. Salt mining enables them to earn enough to buy clothes and pay state taxes. The Foga site employs more than 200 families.
Salt mining in Foga follows the same lines as trona mining described above, but salt has to be processed twice to ensure that it is fit for human consumption; the salt from the first process is used for fattening animals (figure 2).
Figure 2. Salt production cycle at Foga
Two hundred families work the salt deposits, with an average family size of 15. The annual production of the 200 families is estimated to be 32,000 Foga measures (salt packed in 15 kg sacks) totalling 480 tonnes. The turnover of the 200 producers, at 1,000 CFA Francs a Foga measure, comes to 32 million CFA Francs, or 160,000 CFA Francs per family per year, as against 100,000 CFA Francs for the trona. Thus, although income from salt mining is low, it is better than that from trona but it must be borne in mind that families in Foga are three times as large as in Boboye.
The means of transport are the same for salt as for trona. Similarly, intermediaries buy the salt from the producers, and then sell it in neighbouring regions and countries; the producers also sell some of their produce in local village markets.
For both adults and children, the conditions of work are similar to those in trona mining. It has yet to be established, however, in terms of risks to health, which of the two products is more harmful to the body, given that trona and salt have somewhat different chemical and physical properties.
The 200 families working the salt deposits in Tounouga comprise 3,000 people, including 1,620 child workers below 18 years of age. These children are involved in all stages of the salt production cycle. They therefore face all hazards, and in a more serious fashion, not just because of their weaker bodies but also because there are more children than adults involved in the extraction phase, where they breath in the dust and their skin becomes dried and cracked, especially during cold periods.
Salt extraction (scraping) is done almost exclusively by children, who often injure themselves with their tools through lack of experience. They work more than eight hours a day with no chance of remuneration or of changing these working hours. Salt mining is the main cause of children not attending school, or leaving it for good; in such a way do they sell their future.
There are no legal provisions or regulations dealing specifically with safety and health aspects of salt mining or with the prevention of child labour in this sector.
Mines inspectors, who do not even visit the mines in the formal sector, neither visit nor check these salt-mining sites. As with the majority of activities in the informal sector, salt workers have neither group nor individual protective equipment. The following figures for illnesses apparently related to salt extraction were obtained from the manager of the Tounouga medical centre:
There would also seem to be a low rate of visiting the medical centre both because of the policy of recovering health care costs and general poverty, and sometimes because of simple distrust of modern medicine.
Trona and salt are produced in the same département in conditions that are not only arduous but also unprofitable. It is therefore appropriate that these people are helped to organize themselves into cooperatives or associations, and to supply them with more appropriate working materials. The prevention of child labour involves the fight against poverty and support to NGOs and associations that combat child labour. Any support to the State, via the Ministry responsible for labour, in the form of helping to define and implement a policy on child labour would be a great benefit.
Madaoua is 510 km east of Niamey. It is a district town in the département of Tahoua, 540 km to the east-north-east of Niamey. The département of Tahoua covers an area of 106,000 km2, and has a population of 1.75 million. The proportion of the population with access to a health facility is 35%. The district of Madaoua covers an area of 4,500 km2, and has a population of 302,000; the proportion of the population with access to a health facility is 63%, and the school attendance rate is 21%.
The country's only cement works is in the administrative-zone town of Malbaza in Madaoua district. Gypsum mining began in 1966 to supply the cement works. Gypsum is currently supplied by quarries in the two districts of Madaoua and Bouza.
Gypsum nodules are simply collected from the soil's surface or, at the most, collected by light digging (1-2 metres deep), to extract the gypsum flakes using picks, mine bars, buckets, shovels and bags.
Processing involves dry-cleaning the gypsum nodules or flakes using a metal tool or cloths. The product is then transported by donkey to lorry pick-up points, where approved merchants buy the product to sell it to the cement works or export it as necessary.
For the most part, women and children collect and transport the product. The number of children working at the Malbaza site is estimated at 360; 60% of the total number of workers. Although among the adults, more women than men are involved in this activity, among the children, more boys are involved than girls.
Table 3. Workers in gypsum production by activity
| Activity | Women | Men | Girls | Boys |
| Scraping | Low | Medium | None | High |
| Gathering | High | Low | Medium | High |
| Cleaning | High | Low | Medium | Medium |
| Transporting | High | Low | Medium | High |
Table 4. Workers in gypsum production by age
| Activity Age | 6-9 | 10-13 | 14-17 | >17 | Total |
| Scraping | 0 | 2 | 19 | 21 | 42 |
| Gathering | 7 | 15 | 24 | 38 | 84 |
| Cleaning | 5 | 13 | 24 | 35 | 77 |
| Transporting | 7 | 15 | 24 | 41 | 87 |
| Total | 19 | 45 | 91 | 135 | 290 |
| Per cent | 6.5 | 15.5 | 31.5 | 46.5 | 100 |
The children are exposed mainly to two types of risk. During extraction, they are at risk of injury from their tools on the one hand, and extreme tiredness on the other, since they have to cover great distances (several dozen kilometres) every day. Environmental risks include snake and scorpion bites, and foot injuries (the children sometimes walk barefooted) from stones and wood splinters.
The following comment by one of the leading approved merchants underlines the poor remuneration that the miners (those gathering the nodules) get from this activity, considering the methods used: "A miner needs about five years to pay back a 15,000 CFA Franc loan he takes out to buy a donkey, which may well die anyway after two or three years of using it."
As gypsum is bought (ultimately) only by the SNC cement company, its price depends on the financial health of this company. As the SNC has just been privatized, the merchants, through their cooperative, should use the opportunity to secure better terms from the buyer. Similarly, the State could intervene to upgrade the rates paid to small operators, which in turn will allow them to improve their conditions of work.
The State could also play a part in improving the conditions of work by scheduling work on road and transport infrastructure for better long-distance movement of goods. Support to various communities and NGOs involved in child labour could also help to relieve the suffering of these children and offer them a better future.
The Liptako Gourma region is where the Niger river runs, taking in the extreme south-west of Niger, the south-east of Mali and the north of Burkina Faso. Gold in the Liptako region of Niger was discovered in 1964 by BRGM of France but is only now being mined commercially. Gold panning (artisanal gold mining) began in Niger in 1966, but only began to take off in 1984.
Gold panning and semi-industrial gold mining had already progressed during this period in its two neighbours, Mali and Burkina Faso; they have the same geological conditions as Niger, but were experiencing greater economic difficulties. In effect, owing to uranium, in 1977-83 Niger saw a period of economic growth that put it ahead of its neighbours. However, with the fall in the price of uranium from 1983, misery came quickly to the country, forcing the population to choose between a mass exodus or activities that complemented agriculture and animal husbandry. This was mainly gold panning, for the inhabitants of the Liptako, an area covering the administrative zones of Gothèye in the district of Téra and Torodi in the district of Say, as well as the district of Kollo. These three districts are located in the département of Tillabéri in the west of the country. The département of Tillabéri has a poverty rate of 80%, and is regarded as the poorest region in Niger. However, it is rich in water and mining potential. The Niger river (the only permanent water course in the country) passes through this region for 500 km and is fed by six feeder rivers, while underground iron, phosphate and gold deposits remain to be industrially mined. The population is made up mainly of Songhai, Peuhl, Tuareg, Gourmantche and Hausa peoples. The population is estimated at 1.9 million; 53% are children under 18 years of age. The proportion of the population with access to a health facility is 30% and the school attendance rate is 28%.
Economic activities are based on agriculture, which involves 87-89 per cent of the settled and semi-settled population. Animal husbandry is carried out by the Peulhs and the Tuaregs; riverside dwellers fish, mainly the Sorko who sometimes come from Nigeria.
Gold panning is a secondary activity carried out mainly after the rainy season by tens of thousands of workers, of whom more than 10% come from other regions of Niger and neighbouring countries, particularly Burkina Faso and Mali. Women and children, as well as men, are involved in gold panning, including during the rainy season when the risk of accidents is greater and the sites are closed, officially at least, because of this.
Gold extraction and processing are carried out using artisanal processes, both at the two sites of Alaréni and Tchalkam, and all the (approximately) 40 sites of the Niger Liptako. This explains the low level of remuneration and the high accident rate for this activity.
Open-pit mining is carried out either by surface excavation, by vertical or inclined shafts, or by trenching (figure 3). Underground mining is used when the ore is more than 20 metres deep.
The equipment used for both open-pit and underground mining includes picks, pick-axes, buckets, rope ladders, plastic bags and torches.
Figure 3. Gold mining in trenches
Operations at Taboura site, Alaréni in Torodi district only began in 1997, but by July 1998 an accident had already claimed the lives of 27 people at the Taboura site.
As operations are still fairly recent, open-pit methods are used with very few deep workings, although depths of 50 metres have been reached, suggesting that some workings are underground.
Surface excavation involves scratching at lateritic lodes or alluvial terraces or even quartz scatterings. The depth is usually less than 20 metres and accidents are rare. The maximum depth allowed by the authorities is 10 metres.
The alluvial ores and mineral-bearing veins are worked by vertical or inclined shafts using picks and mine bars. The material dug out -- waste and ore -- is extracted using shovels and buckets. The shafts may extend down 50 metres, though they are usually narrow (1.5-2 metres) to enable the miners to get at the ore as quickly as possible by keeping to a minimum the amount of waste earth that must be removed.
The site has more than 20 shafts (figure 4), with each one worked by a number of people according to its depth (generally 10-20 metres). The shaft belongs to an owner and the workers are supervised by a team leader. The workers working the shaft or removing the extracted material from the bottom are usually children of 14 to 17 years of age, who form a chain on a rope ladder with wooden rungs. In this way they hand sacks containing the ore along the line, each sack weighing 5-10 kg. The children are attached by a rope to a piton in the side of the shaft to prevent them from falling (figure 3).
Figure 4. Gold mining in pits
Trench mining of lode ore in Alaréni and Tchanlkam consists of digging a series of holes, each of which constitutes a parcel of land belonging to a gold panner, the owner of the hole. The shafts are aligned along the lode and form a great trench of some 100 metres long, 15-30 metres wide and 30-50 metres deep. The workers access the bottom of the shaft and remove the material in the same way as in the shafts. The waste scattered around the trenches during the digging process forms 5-10 metre high heaps. Their increasing height poses a real danger for the safety of the trenches, which could well cave in (which happens in the rainy season). This was the cause of the accident that killed 27 people in 1998 at the Taboura site in Alaréni.
Deep mining is now carried out in Tchanlkam using horizontal or inclined drifts dug from the bottom of the (vertical or inclined) shaft or the trenches. The drifts interconnect deep below the ground and are several dozens of metres long.
This type of mining operation is the most dangerous because coupled with the risk of accident because of a hole collapsing--they are dug deep with no support--is the risk of suffocation--there is no ventilation at this depth.
It was underground drift mining that led to the deaths of 23 gold panners in Tchanlkam in 1984. Since this accident, in which several children died, children have been prohibited from working in drifts, and the maximum authorized depth is 30 metres. However, in reality, the gold panners dig deeper.
Artisanal gold processing involves: panning, vanning or a sluice box depending on the deposit type. For alluvial and eluvial outcropping and/or endogenetic ores, processing involves concentrating the gold either by panning or vanning, as the ore is in a fractured state and not consolidated in the rock. For lode ore, however, several operations, involving crushing, grinding and sifting are needed before the gold can be panned. All these processes are performed by men as well as women and children.
Quartz blocks are put on a large hollow stone and smashed with a hammer into 2-3 cm diameter pieces that are then placed onto plates or pans before being ground. The quartz fragments containing the gold are finely ground into grains of 1 mm diameter or less, with a metal pestle and mortar made locally. The powder is sifted to separate out the fine particles from the larger ones that are then ground and sifted. Women and girls are used a lot in this operation, which is regarded as less arduous but which involves significant exposure to dust.
The gold is concentrated by panning or vanning. Panning entails washing the ore while manually, while vanning is carried out dry using pans, plates or bateas after the extracted ore has been obtained.
The gold grains are separated from impurities with a magnet by the owner of the ore (this task is never handed to another party because of the risk of theft). Sometimes the ore is washed in an inclined sluice box with riffles. The resulting gold powder is weighed and the gold powder is put in flasks or tied up in bits of cloth. It is sold by the producer or the intermediaries to wholesalers. The two largest gold merchants in Niger each have a smelting plant in Niamey.
Trade in gold is regulated by the decrees No. 84-110/PCMS/MMH dated 28 May 1974 No. 89-029/PMS/MMS dated 6 February 1989. The more recent decree gave the monopoly on buying gold at gold-panning sites to the National Office of Mining Resources (ONAREM). Approved merchants are, though, also permitted to trade their products with ONAREM.
There are no reliable statistics on the amount of gold produced because the approved merchants do not declare all their production; in addition, any gold bought by them may well have come from neighbouring areas in Burkina Faso.
According to a report by Mahamadou Souley on the potential and value of artisanal and small-scale mining of gold-bearing deposits of Niger's Liptako Gourma, written in December 1993: "The gold-panning mission undertaken by the Minister responsible for mines in 1989 has recorded, at five sites (including Tchalkam), a total of approximately 217 kg of purchased gold over four months." "The pilot mission undertaken by ONAREM that was set up at three gold-panning sites with a view to installing gold-buying counters, collected in one month (from 19 April to 17 May 1992) 13.8 kg of concentrated unrefined gold, or 479 grams of gold a day."
The sales channels comprise:
A shaft-owner pays his workers by sharing the gold production with them, from once a week to once every two months. Each person processes his or her own share and, usually, sells the extracted gold to intermediaries.
It is recognized that these ores are obtained in difficult and dangerous conditions, even in the formal industrial sector, despite the improvements brought about by technical progress. In the informal sector, and particularly in gold panning, methods of work are straight out of the Middle Ages and involve enormous risks, low productivity and therefore low income, as well as the uncertainty of finding any gold.
Work is arduous as it is performed manually without any additional source of power, e.g., electrical, mechanical, chemical, wind, hydraulic or pneumatic. The most physically demanding job is digging, which is very hard indeed, in the ore that is usually found in quartz veins up to 50 metres deep. The regulations stipulate a maximum depth of 30 metres for underground working and 10 metres for surface working.
The shafts and drifts are narrow, so that workers are constricted and, above all, have too little air for proper breathing and to absorb the loss of calories through heavy sweating. Daily working time is seven to eight hours; sometimes more.
At the end of the drifts where work is carried out in teams of two or three people, workers may dig, if they have the strength, for two hours non-stop before coming to the surface to get a breath of fresh air.
The risks of blocks of ore being dropped, tunnels collapsing and workers falling from ladders are prevalent because of the lack of appropriate mining techniques. There should be a real effort to stop blocks being dropped, shore up tunnels use stopes in place of ladders. Tunnels may collapse because of the soil types, which are generally fractured and weathered schists, and so unstable.
The waste heaps piled up right next to the excavation workings can cause both rock-falls into the occupied mine and can lead to tunnel collapse because of their weight.
Mining is sometimes carried on at night despite its prohibition. In addition, especially at the start of gold-panning and after the rains, the deeper tunnels may be submerged in water owing to a rising water table caused by the rains. This puts an extra heavy financial and physical burden on those working, as medium-rate pumps are needed to pump out the water. The water can easily lead to drowning.
Processing the gold is less arduous and dangerous than mining it as it is done on the surface. However, the various processes release a lot of dust and the crushing and grinding require a great deal of physical effort leading to pains in the arms and general tiredness. The crushing and grinding are extremely noisy operations and can cause ear damage and washing the ore in polluted rivers causes bilharziosis.
During the whole process, workers are worried that they may not find any gold, and in fact, in contrast to trona and salt, gold is hard to find. Workers often find no gold at all. Because of these uncertainties, it is impossible to put a figure on earnings. However, as an indication, monthly income can vary from zero to 1 million CFA Francs.
Activities involved in gold production are wider than just extraction and processing. Supporting villages grow around the sites, with houses usually made of straw, offering a range of activities linked to some extent to gold panning. The activities that use children most are:
Children are fully involved in nine of the 12 activities used in gold production.
Children under 18 years of age are prohibited from digging at the face in shafts, trenches or drifts as it is dangerous, and crushing and grinding are inadvisable as they are arduous tasks. However, in reality, children of 16 or 17 carry out all these activities.
In the extraction phase, children are used for an activity that is very dangerous, even if it does not seem arduous. The children are what we might call child ore-carriers. To carry waste product and ore to the surface, the children form a chain on a rope ladder (with wooden rungs as foot-rests) and pass sacks that usually weigh 5-10 kg up and down the line (figure 5). To prevent the child from falling when he stretches to get the sack from the child below him and to lift it above him, he is secured by a rope to a wooden piton in the shaft wall.
In addition to the risk of rocks falling from the wall of the shaft and waste at the surface falling on the child, the child may fall down the shaft if the rope breaks or if the piton works loose from the shaft wall. The child could also suffer from vertigo, and in certain instances may well be unable to keep his balance in the hole because of taking drugs. It is quite clear from this that children (up to 20 may be working in a deeper pit) are used for carrying the product in dangerous conditions. Only conveyer-belts, skips or other modern extraction equipment can assure safe working conditions in industrial mines.
This is intolerable child labour, as are certain activities in the villages that grow up around gold-panning sites, such as prostitution among girls as young as 12 and drug-taking by both boys and girls.
Water is transported by boys of 15 to 17 years old, mainly using donkey-drawn carts, travelling some 10 km to Alaréni, i.e., 40 km for two return trips a day. The price per water-fetching trip is 2,000 Francs, but the boys may not be paid as they sell the water on credit; their being paid depends on the chance of gold being found in the washed ore. This risk of not being paid also happens in other transactions such as food selling and prostitution among girls. Such uncertainties become even worse among boys and men working in a mine (such as when digging at the face or transporting the product), as the owner of the site pays them not in cash but in kind, i.e., ore, that could turn out after processing to be merely waste product.
Figure 5. Getting gold ore to the surface
In terms of the distribution of children by stage of the production cycle, and by sex and age, table 5 shows that, with regard to children, digging is prohibited (boys and girls), as well as carrying products to the surface (girls), while crushing and grinding are inadvisable though not prohibited. Table 6 shows that despite these regulations, children, especially those aged from 14 to 17, carry out all the activities that adults do.
Children aged 6 to 9 are involved in three activities, and children aged 10 to 13 in five activities. The majority of child workers are boys aged from 14 to 17: 25% of them are used as ore carriers and 10% as water carriers and sellers. Girls sell food (6% of children); 8% of children engage in prostitution, or probably more than 50% of girls.
Table 5. Activities in gold production
| Activity | Men | Women | Girls | Boys |
| Shaft, drift or trench digging | ||||
| Carrying ore from shaft, drift or trench | ||||
| Crushing | ||||
| Grinding | ||||
| Sifting | - | |||
| (Water) panning | ||||
| (Dry) vanning | ||||
| Selling gold | ||||
| Carrying and selling water | ||||
| Selling food | - | - | ||
| Prostitution | - | - | ||
| Selling and taking drugs | ||||
| = involved; = prohibited; = inadvisable. | ||||
Table 6. Distribution of children by age group and activity1
| Activity | Age group | Number | ||
| 6-9 | 10-13 | 14-17 | ||
| Shaft, drift or trench digging | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Carrying ore from shaft, drift or trench | 0 | 0 | 25 | 25 |
| Crushing | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| Grinding | 0 | 2 | 4 | 6 |
| Sifting | 5 | 10 | 7 | 22 |
| (Water) panning | 0 | 0 | 9 | 9 |
| (Dry) vanning | 0 | 3 | 8 | 11 |
| Selling gold | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Carrying and selling water | 2 | 0 | 10 | 12 |
| Selling food | 3 | 8 | 6 | 17 |
| Prostitution | 0 | 2 | 8 | 10 |
| Selling and taking drugs | 0 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| Total | 10 | 25 | 90 | 125 |
| Per cent | 8 | 20 | 72 | 100 |
| 1 Sample of 100 children, 50 from Alaréni; 50 from Tchalkam (some do more than one task). | ||||
Gold panners do not use any modern mining safety techniques. They have no group or individual safety equipment. However, attempts to improve on this began in 1986-1987 with the setting-up of a multidisciplinary safety team involving personnel from various ministerial departments, such as mining technicians, health workers, police, republican guards, and water and forestry workers. These teams -- disbanded in 1990 as the State failed to continue funding them -- ensured, among other things, that:
Until now, the only documentation that has been produced relates to the selling of gold. No regulations on safety have been produced, apart from decrees on the closing of sites in the rainy season and recommendations written by the safety teams or mining technicians in their mission reports. No organization specifically to tackle safety issues has been set up by or for the gold panners. Accident statistics are not gathered by the gold panners, and the Mines Administration has only a few figures, mainly on fatal group accidents. These figures have little to do with reality, according to the information we gathered on the ground. As in other informal sector activities, the gold panners have no social security cover and have no preventive health check-ups.
In Alaréni and Tchalkam there are two medical centres in the two administrative-zone towns of Torodi, 60 km away, and Gothèye, 100 km away. These two infirmaries have inadequate human and material resources. Access to the two villages is by non-metalled tracks, and is therefore difficult. The district hospital in Téra (the district town) is about 200 km away.
In the event of an accident or illness at the gold-panning sites of Alaréni or Tchalkam, the health care system offers first aid after an accident or illness, which may be given in one of two ways. Either, if the shaft owner has the financial means, private nurses at the sites can offer treatment after an accident. Also, for an illness, the victim is responsible for his or her own treatment, and generally returns to his or her family for care (usually traditional), or simply to rest. Or, if the shaft owner does not have the financial means, an accident is treated the same way as an illness, i.e., the victim returns to his or her family for treatment.
After a serious accident the victim is transferred to the district hospital in Téra, some 200 km away (including 100 km over difficult tracks, taking 3-4 hours) or to the hospital in Niamey. However, a vehicle is not kept permanently at the site. In any event, even if a vehicle is available, the victim will usually be taken to his or her family if the shaft owner does not have the financial means to pay for taking him or her to the district hospital.
Gold panning is one of the most arduous, dangerous and uncertain of all activities.
It is Niger's great poverty -- rated as the worst in the world in 1996 in economic terms -- that compels the population to try and scrape a living irrespective of the conditions of work. The département of Tillabéri, where gold panning is carried out, is regarded as the country's poorest, with a poverty incidence of 80%. It is carried out without any safety procedures, so exposing several thousand workers to all the dangers mentioned above. Working from an estimated figure that the workers at the two sites of Alaréni and Tchalkam (1,100, including 187 children, or 17%) account for about 5% of the 40 or so gold-panning sites in Niger, the total number of gold panners may be estimated to be about 30,000, including 5,100 children.
There are several intolerable types of child labour: ore-carriers (boys), prostitution (girls) and drug-taking (boys and girls). Given the impossibility of stopping these activities, urgent remedial actions are required, including:
The investigated sites employ some 5,250 workers, of who 2,492 (47%) are children (table 7). Based on the assumption that these five sites account for approximately 3.5% of all mines in the country, then the total number of workers in mines would be 150,000, including 2,620 workers in the large industrial mines.
Table 7. Child workers at five sites, 1997
| Trona | Salt | Gypsum | Gold | Total | |
| Production (tonnes) | 100 | 480 | 2 500 | 0.08 | |
| Number of child workers (< 18) | 360 | 1 620 | 325 | 187 | 2 492 |
| Percentage of child workers | 60 | 54 | 59 | 17 |
Therefore, the small-scale mines employ 147,380 workers, including 69,932 children. Small-scale quarries should also be counted, and they employ twice as many people as the small-scale mines, i.e., 294,760 workers, 57% are children. Hence the small-scale mines and quarries in Niger employ approximately 442,000 workers, including 250,000 children.
On the basis of a sample of two gold panning sites (1,100 workers, including 187 children, or 17%) which constitute about 5% of the gold panning sites, the number of workers at such sites should be 22,000, say up to 30,000 if other activities associated with gold panning are included. Thus, gold panning in Niger employs 30,000 people, including 5,100 children.
The most dangerous work and the most intolerable types of child labour are seen most often in gold-panning operations, which lead to the deaths of people, including children, every year, followed by other small-scale mines, and then the small-scale quarries.
Child labour is extremely common is Niger, mainly in the informal sector and child labour in small-scale artisanal mining is the country's most dangerous informal sector activity. This branch alone employs several hundred thousand workers including about 250,000 children in mines and quarries despite the fact that the legal minimum age for working is 14 in general and 18 for the mining sector.
After agriculture and animal husbandry, mining is the mainstay of Niger's economy, in view of the country's mineral wealth that, unfortunately, not been worked at an industrial level with a view to achieving more profitable or more secure operations. Having missed a range of opportunities and having failed to adopt and follow an appropriate policy, the State has simply allowed the informal sector to invest in exploiting the country's mining resources. This so-called social measure is intended to combat poverty. In reality, however, a vicious circle has been formed in which those working the mines do not have the capacity -- and have received no support to enable them -- to make a profit on their mining activities.
In an attempt to make up for this lack of capacity, adults use their children, thereby compromising the long-term socio-economic development of the country while being unable to improve the immediate situation which, on the contrary, has become worse since child labour cannot be competitive (or profitable) in the mining sector. This dangerous and arduous work is simply damaging children, both physically and psychosocially.
In short, the main reasons for child labour in Niger are:
All four mining activities -- trona, salt, gypsum and gold -- employ a high proportion of children (usually over 50%) and involve significant risks of accidents and illnesses, particularly to children (table 8). They therefore all need support, not only to improve working conditions, but also to reduce these risks and stop child labour.
Table 8. Risks involved in the small-scale mining of trona, salt, gypsum and gold
| Risks | Trona | Salt | Gypsum | Gold |
| Falling blocks of ore | High | |||
| Collapsing tunnel | High | |||
| Worker falling down shaft | ||||
| Wound caused by tool | Medium | Medium | Medium | High |
| Explosion | ||||
| Asphyxiation | Low | High | ||
| Dust | Medium | Medium | Medium | High |
| Noise | Low | Low | Low | High |
| Dermatosis | Low | Low | ||
| Flooding and drowning | Medium | |||
| Temperature (heat or cold) | Low | Low | Low | High |
| Insufficient lighting | High | |||
| Physical effort and muscle pain | Medium | Medium | Medium | High |
| Repetitive tasks | Medium | Medium | Medium | High |
| Dangerous primary materials | ||||
| Dangerous final product | ||||
| Narrow space | ||||
| Dangerous air | Low | Low | Low | High |
| Bilharziosis | Medium | |||
| Prostitution | Low | Medium | ||
| Drugs | Medium |
If the long-term solution lies in fighting poverty, short- or medium-term solutions include the prohibition of several intolerable types of child labour, through:
Regulations on gold panning in Niger.
Mahamadou Souley: Report on the potential and value of artisanal and small-scale mining of gold-bearing sites in Niger's Liptako Gourma.
Jean-Maurice Derrien: Dangerous activities for child workers: Mines and quarries, No. 2 (ILO-IPEC).
-- : Enquiry form on child labour.
Daouda Ali: Child labour in Niger, A.M. University in Niamey.
Mission reports on gold-panning sites by the Management of Mines and the Multidisciplinary Safety Teams.
ILO: Safety and health in opencast mines (Geneva, 1991).