國家地理:非洲采礦童工狀況堪憂

Every week, more children arrive to work in the hundreds of primitive mines in the bush. Here they endure long hours at dangerous jobs, wringing flecks of gold from the dirt with mercury.
One of them is a 12-year-old boy named Saliou. Momodou is just 13 years old. This is a region of Africa where boys of Saliou's age are expected to earn money for their families. He works in a bush mine on the Senegal-Mali border in the village of Tenkoto. Senegal prohibits anyone under 18 from doing hazardous work. And mining is among the most hazardous of jobs. According to the UN, mining is one of the worst forms of child labor. However, the laws are seldom enforced.
Children travel from mine to mine, moving with the gold. The AP reports that 6 months after Saliou arrived in Tenkoto, it was decided that the mine was nearly depleted. So he and the boys walked for more than a week, crossed the Senegal border and arrived at another mine in Mali. It's the same story here as at the mine in Tenkoto. Teenage boys clamber down mine shafts 30 to 50 meters deep. Younger teens then yank the rocks up with a pulley. Squatting next to a plastic tub, boys of school age pour mercury onto their bare hands. Mercury attracts gold like a magnet.
The World Health Organization says that mercury is a potent nerve toxin and can affect the brain. It's especially dangerous for children since their nervous systems are still developing. Typical symptoms of mercury poisoning include mental retardation, loss of balance, tremors, blindness and loss of hearing.
“In addition to the actual work that they do is that they carry very heavy loads, they are exposed to chemicals like mercury which cause extreme danger to the, which pose an extreme danger to the nervous system, kidneys, the respiratory system, reproductive system.”
Once the tiny flecks of gold have been extracted, the buyers step in offering roughly $19 per gram. Once the deals are done, the gold is taken to the capital of Mali. Here the price for gold from Tenkoto is almost $23 a gram, nearly $4 more than the buyers pay the miners.
United Nations mining experts estimate that 10-20% of the thousands of mine workers in West Africa are children.
“Frankly, it's a, it's a very serious problem. We estimate about one million children worldwide are involved in small-scale mining.”
Precisely which products contain child-mined gold, no one can say for sure. Unlike a diamond, gold does not keep its identity on its tortuous journey from mine to market. The AP reports one prominent retailer, Tiffany & Company, has expressed concern about child labor and frustration that it can't certify its products are free of gold mined by youngsters. Because bush mines, where child labor is ubiquitous, supply a fifth of the world's gold according to the UN, the company realizes its supply lines may well be compromised. Tiffany & Company is part of the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices which was formed to seek ways to help reduce the market for gold mined by children. But the council has found no effective way to enforce compliance.
For Saliou, the work in the mines goes on. He says he dreams that one day he'll own something made of gold.
每周，越來越多的兒童來到叢林里的數(shù)百個(gè)原始礦山工作。他們每天在這種危險(xiǎn)的環(huán)境下工作很長時(shí)間，從帶有水銀的泥沙中淘出金沙。
其中一個(gè)是叫Saliou的12歲男孩。Momodou也只有13歲。在非洲的這個(gè)地區(qū)，像Saliou這么大的男孩都要被送出去為家庭賺錢。他們在塞納加爾和馬里邊境上一個(gè)叫Tenkoto的小村莊的叢林礦山里工作。馬里禁止18歲以下的未成年人從事危險(xiǎn)工作，而開礦是最危險(xiǎn)的工作之一。聯(lián)合國稱，礦工是最糟糕的童工現(xiàn)象。然而，這項(xiàng)法律卻基本上得不到執(zhí)行。
孩子們隨著金子移動，從一個(gè)礦山轉(zhuǎn)到另一個(gè)礦山。AP報(bào)告稱，Saliou來到Tenkoto之后6個(gè)月，這座礦山就基本上被挖空了。所以，他和其他孩子一起走了一個(gè)多星期，穿過塞納加爾邊境，到了馬里北部的礦山。這里的情況和Tenkoto一樣。孩子們沿著桿子爬到深30到50米的礦井里。年齡稍小一點(diǎn)的用滑輪將巖石一筐一筐的拉出來。這些學(xué)齡兒童蹲在塑料管旁邊，將水銀倒在裸露的手臂上。水銀像磁石一樣吸引這金子。
世界衛(wèi)生組織說，水銀是強(qiáng)有力的神經(jīng)毒藥，嚴(yán)重者可以影響大腦。為兒童的危險(xiǎn)性更大，因?yàn)樗麄兊纳窠?jīng)系統(tǒng)還在發(fā)育。水銀中毒的典型癥狀包括精神遲緩，平衡失調(diào)，顫抖，失明，失聰。
“他們除了每天進(jìn)行高負(fù)荷的勞動之外，還暴露在極度危險(xiǎn)的化學(xué)物質(zhì)下，這會對他們的神經(jīng)系統(tǒng)，腎，呼吸系統(tǒng)和再生系統(tǒng)造成很大的危險(xiǎn)。”
微小的金粒被提取出來之后，買主以大約19美元每克的價(jià)格來收購。交易成功之后，這些金子被帶到馬里首都。在這里，來自Tenkoto的金價(jià)大約23美元每克，比買主支付給礦工的高出4美元。
聯(lián)合國采礦專家估計(jì)，西非的數(shù)千名礦工中有10-20%是兒童。
“坦白的說，這是非常嚴(yán)重的問題。我們估計(jì)，實(shí)際上這種小規(guī)模的礦井中有大約100萬名童工。”
如果要確切的講，那些產(chǎn)品中包含童工采集的金子，沒人可以給出確定答案。和轉(zhuǎn)世不同，金子在從礦山到市場的過程中特性會發(fā)生變化。AP報(bào)告說，一個(gè)顯著的零售商，Tiffany & Company為童工問題感到很擔(dān)憂，同時(shí)表示很沮喪，因?yàn)椴恢雷约撼鍪鄣慕鹱邮遣皇怯赏どa(chǎn)的。由于童工普遍存在的叢林礦山占世界金子供應(yīng)的五分之一，該公司意識到供應(yīng)鏈可能也作出了讓步。Tiffany & Company是負(fù)責(zé)人的珠寶行為委員會的成員之一，該組織致力于減少童工采集的金子的市場。但是該委員會至今沒有發(fā)現(xiàn)有效的方法。
對Saliou來說，礦山的工作還要繼續(xù)。他說，他的夢想是，有一天自己也能擁有金子做的東西。