Some children start working in mines and quarries at an early age, often alongside their older family members. Like adults, they can face many kinds of dangers to their own safety and health from working in such environments, but the effects of injuries and ill-health on children can be even greater than those on adults.
Children may not realize the dangers they face because of their lack of emotional as well as physical maturity and general work experience. They may be under pressure to work harder than they are physically capable of doing. Working in mines or quarries above ground, they face dangers from such tasks as:
- carrying heavy loads of rocks and stones – leading to back pain, spinal deformity and other musculo-skeletal disorders, quite apart from sheer tiredness,
- breaking up rocks and stones in quarries using chisels and hammers – leading to eye injuries and cuts to and hardening of the hands and forearms,
- using toxic chemicals such as mercury to extract gold from rock, and
- working near machinery and site vehicles, leading to potentially severe injuries or fatalities.
These workplaces are often in remote and inhospitable environments where there is poor sanitation and no access to clean drinking water, and it is necessary to work long hours in the open with little protection from the sun. Moreover, there are often no first aid or medical facilities nearby to help stem the effects of any injuries that do occur.
Working in underground mines, on the other hand, can mean being winched down long vertical shafts on single ropes, crawling along tunnels not much wider than the body and working in cramped conditions in poor air quality. Children in underground mines face specific dangers such as:
- tunnel collapses or rock falls – and children have less strength compared to adults to break themselves free,
- fire and explosion, especially from coalmines, and
- excessive amounts of dust, such as silica, resulting in chronic breathing problems and eventually in lung diseases such as silicosis.
Mines and quarries are hostile environments and working in them is dangerous, especially for children.
The ILO's goal is to see the elimination of children working in mines and quarries by 2015.
Some relevant ILO standards
Convention (C138) and Recommendation (R146) on Minimum Age, 1973.
Convention (C176) and Recommendation (R183) on Safety and Health in Mines Convention, 1995.
Convention (C182) and Recommendation (R190) on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, 1999.
Code of Practice on Safety and Health in Opencast Mines, 1991.
Code of Practice on Safety and health in coal mines, 1986.
