WORLD> Africa
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WORLD> Africa
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Kids working in African gold mines
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-08-11 10:16 But customs records in Mali show that since 2003, 96 percent of Ba's exports have been purchased by two small Geneva companies. Decafin SA bought nearly one-fifth of it, worth up to US$4 million at today's prices. The rest, worth up to US$18 million, was bought by Monetary Institute, run by former Decafin executive Judah Leon Morali. "I am just a little guy," Morali said. "I buy some grams, some kilos, from here and there." Everyone buys from Ba, he said, and if other company names don't appear it's because some transactions are unrecorded.
If they employ children, he asked, where are the written work contracts? Primitive bush mines, of course, do not have work contracts. "There's no work contract with any children? Voila!" Morali said, dismissing the matter. Decafin, the second importer, is a family business located on Geneva's exclusive rue du Rhone. Marc Arazi, its principal officer, first denied buying from Ba. But later, one of the company's attorneys, Marc Oederlin, said Decafin's business relationship with Ba is undeniable and that Arazi acknowledges it. The lawyer said Decafin is concerned about child labor but has no legal responsibility to investigate how the gold it imports is mined. He added that Decafin trusts Ba and is certain his gold is not the product of child labor. Earlier this year, Decafin unsuccessfully sued The AP in Switzerland to prevent its name from being published in this story, claiming it would unfairly damage the company's reputation. In court papers, Decafin claimed its gold could not be mined by children in Senegal and Mali, where the AP had observed child gold miners, because Ba gets it from northern Guinea. Arazi visited the area in 2005, Decafin said, and if he had seen underage workers he would not have done business with Ba. The reef of gold stretches 70 miles through northern Guinea. There, hundreds of bush mines cluster around the towns of Siguiri and Kankan. A United Nations mining expert who inspected the region a few months after Arazi's visit estimated that 10 percent to 20 percent of its thousands of mine workers were children. The report also documented fatal collapses of poorly constructed mine shafts, nonexistent sanitation and extreme poverty. On Saturday in nearby Burkina Faso, an illegal bush mine collapsed following heavy rain, killing at least 31 miners, the government said. An AP reporter who visited Guinea in April saw hundreds of child miners. The ore is richer here, so the children do not extract the gold with mercury. Instead, they stand in muddy pits under a blistering sun and pan it from the mud. Many are girls who begin as apprentice panners as young as 4 and become full-time workers by age 10. Teenage boys work the shafts, descending with flashlights tied around their necks to hack ore from the rock. Lancei Conde, the regional administrator of Kankan, said children work at all the bush mines in Guinea. An army of gold buyers stalk the Guinea mines. Most are loyal to one of three major traders - Abdoulaye Nabe, El Haj Oumar Berete, and the Kante brothers (Sakia and Sekouba) who operate out of the towns of Siguiri, Kankan and Kouroussa. The traders told The AP that they sell some of their gold to a dealer in the Guinea capital of Conakry, but pack most of it into cars or motorcycles bound for Ba's office in Bamako. They prefer to deal with Ba, the traders said, because he pays promptly in US dollars. Sakia Kante displayed a receipt from Ba, dated April 5, for 7,544 grams (241 ounces) of gold, for which Ba paid nearly US$200,000. The Swiss importers, Monetary and Decafin, said they turn the gold they buy from Ba over to Swiss smelters. According to industry experts, smelters melt gold from all over the world together in large vats to mold standard bars or strips. So the gold mined by children is mixed in with the rest of the batch. The smelters credit Decafin and Monetary with the quantity of gold they supply. The two importers are paid when the bars and strips are sold through Swiss banks. Decafin's gold goes to one of the world's largest smelters, Valcambi SA, according to Olivia Berger, a lawyer for the importer. The gold is then sold through the Swiss banking giant, UBS AG, she said. Valcambi chief executive Michael Mesaric said his company would not want to "service or even accept gold from a mine where children work." UBS spokeswoman Rebeca Garcia declined to say much about Decafin, citing Swiss banking secrecy laws. However, in its lawsuit against The AP, Decafin said its metal account was closed by UBS as a result of The AP's inquiries. The smelter for the other importer, Monetary, is unclear. Morali, Monetary's founder, said he used to send his gold to Metalor Technologies SA, a large refiner and precious metals dealer, but switched last year to another smelter that he declined to identify. "You want to understand the gold trail?" Morali asked. "It comes from Africa and it arrives in the Swiss banks. That's all you need to know." Metalor denied it had done any business with Monetary. But Metalor acknowledged it did import bush gold directly from Ba in 1999 and 2000, according to Nawal Ait-Hocine, head of Metalor's legal and compliance division. She did not say why it stopped. Mali customs records show Ba also supplied gold to Metalor in 2003, but Ait-Hocine said she could find no record of it. Metalor conducts "extensive due diligence" to make sure its gold comes from legitimate sources, Ait-Hocine said, but "a company can never be 100 percent sure." The trail of gold that begins in Saliou's mercury-tainted hands ends with bullion in bank vaults and with necklaces, rings and bracelets sold by jewelry retailers all over the world. 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. It passes through 10 or more hands. And when it is melted, usually several times, and mixed with gold from other sources, its address is effectively erased. Jewelers and retailers that buy gold through UBS include Compagnie Financiere Richemont SA, the firm that makes Montblanc pens, Piaget's luxury watches and the jewelry of Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels. Gold processed by Metalor has been used by these brands as well as in discount jewelry sold at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and luxury jewelry sold by Tiffany & Co. These companies expressed concern about child labor and frustration that they can't certify their products are free of it. Because bush mines, where child labor is ubiquitous, supply a fifth of the world's gold, the companies realize their supply lines may well be compromised. "I can't overemphasize how complex this problem is," said Michael Kowalski, Tiffany's chairman. "There is a desire to deal with this. But the question is how?" Tiffany joined with other jewelers and mining companies in 2005 to create the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices, which forbids child mining. Major refiners, including Metalor, have signed on, as has Cartier. But to date, the council has found no way to enforce compliance. "Home Depot can track every 2-by-4 to its forest of origin," said economist Michael Conroy, who has written a book on industry supply chains. "You can track every bag of coffee, every diamond to a specific diamond field. But for gold there's nothing." After six months of work, Saliou is paid US$40. He was promised US$2 a day, which would come to US$360. But his boss deducts money for tea, rice and rent, and Saliou doesn't know how much these things cost. "If I have one wish, it's that I might someday have a little bit of money," he says. "Sometimes I dream that one day I'll own something made of gold." He and the other children scour the ground for mud spilled by the adults. It has already been processed for gold once, but they wash it and pour mercury over it again, hoping to find some gold they don't have to give their boss. They find a flake. It weighs 0.2 grams. They will get US$1.95 each. The boys spend their money on packets of paracetamol, a painkiller sold at the village market. They pop the drug after 10-hour work days to ease the ache in their backs and chests. The dirt floors of their huts are littered with pill wrappers. |
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