The aim is to eventually, remove children from the work and get them into school or, at least to begin with, prevent them from distorting their young, growing bodies by being subject to day-long digging which produces a man/child kind of physique. Care is taken to make the often 60ft deep open pits safe to work in and essentially, miners are rewarded with a decent price for the gold they produce. ![]() Where the Fairtrade Foundation has become involved, miners wear smart boiler suits and rubber boots hard hats are essential round machinery. Mothers work during pregnancy and the results are evident in children’s glazed pupils, their distance from everyday life and their constant restlessness. Inhaling the mercury gas can affect the fetus. Mercury is also present in the bowls and basins used for amalgamation, bowls used for domestic purposes after work finishes for the day. In the process, the gas is inhaled, doing its silent and insidious damage. By burning the amalgam, the mercury is released as a toxic gas, a process watched eagerly because perhaps this time the gold nugget will be big. Neither do the miners understand what happens to the mercury when they burn it off. All they know is that every hand is needed to produce a few Ugandan shillings a day – probably less than £1 – for all that hard work. Parents don’t consider that they might be blighting their children’s future by involving them in the process. It’s back-breaking, heart-breaking work that doesn’t improve their lives one jot no matter how hard they push themselves. And all he has to do is dig a hole in his back garden, shift tons of earth, sluice the gold-bearing soil through sieves and cloths, amalgamate any minute specks of gold with mercury and then sell the resulting nugget to a middleman who gives them less than a 20th of what gold is worth on the open market. Mined extensively by the British in the 30s, once the mines were abandoned, the gold became a desperate source of a few pence a day if a miner was lucky. ![]() In Tanzania and Kenya, gold mining is organized and legalized but in Uganda it’s the only way artisanal locals can produce a subsistence. In a thick rich seam stretching from Lake Victoria right into Kenya, gold lies more than 20 feet under the ground. The Fairtrade Foundation has intervened and is gradually improving mines and mining conditions and in so doing, is giving the miners a future. ![]() African gold miners are often exploited, but it is not as though they have a choice it’s dig or starve and it’s accept a pittance for their labors or work harder the following day. The Fairtrade Foundation is quick to point out that it doesn’t matter what the commodity is, people should get a fair price for the work they do. He follows the gold from Ugandan mines to the London workshops of jewelers.įairtrade isn’t only about coffee and bananas. Ian Berry reflects on the Ugandan gold trade as efforts are made to encourage fairer trading practices.
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