NO OTHER CHOICE
Burkina Faso is a poor country in Africa. It has hundreds of gold mines where diggers search for gold to earn money. Sadly, most of the diggers should be spending their time in school or playing with friends instead of digging for gold.
These diggers are children and teenagers. There are about 700,000 of them working in 600 illegal gold mines across Burkina Faso. They are aged between 5 and 18 years old. They risk their lives everyday to dig for gold in deep mines and tunnels. On an average day, these kids can make a tiny income of about USD10, but often, they earn nothing at all.
Dangerous, hard work
At the mines, even breathing is hard in the windy, dry landscape. Younger children, who are small enough to get to the bottom of the mine shafts, are often the first accident victims. Living and working near dangerous chemicals such as cyanide and mercury, both used in the extraction of gold, also put the children's health in danger.
The young gold-diggers don't go to school and mostly work more than 10 hours a day and often in the full glare of the sun. For these children, working in gold mines seems to be the only choice they have to earn an income and survive.
Featured image brought to you by The Whiz Times via AFP TV.
