Child Miners In Congo

Imagine that you're eight years old and you have to work all day. Your job is deep inside a mine where you are paid less than a buck to find some mineral you will never be able to keep. Sometimes you're not paid at all. The middlemen and older miners often beat and harrass you.

If you're a girl, you're raped.This is everyday life for child miners forced to work in mines because of poverty and war in Congo. These children don't make a profit from the minerals they dig with their bare hands or shovels.

The gold, copper, cobalt, diamonds, coltan and many other minerals are smuggled by rebels into countries like Uganda and sold to traders from Belgium, Switzerland, Britain, Israel, and the US.This is child labor at its worst. These young children are dying of diseases like hemorrhagic fever and cholera. They are working for many hours in really dangerous conditions. They don't wear protective gear. Most eat only one measly meal a day (if they eat at all). These youngsters should be going to school and enjoying their childhood!

It is really sad that so many innocent lives are destroyed because of the so called first world's demand for Congo’s minerals. Absolutely nothing is being done by the international community to ban the sale of minerals from mines that employ children.