Through BAN Toxics, the International Labour Organization (ILO) will conduct a project called Convening Stakeholders to Develop and Implement Strategies to Reduce Child Labor and Improve Working Conditions in Artisanal and Small-Scale Gold Mining (CARING Gold), from 2016 to 2019.
The project hopes to strike a balance between the diverse priorities, needs and interests of different stakeholder groups in the mining sector and bring these stakeholders into facilitated dialogues to ensure that artisanal and small scale miners have access to services, programs and policies that are critical to their livelihoods and social development.
The project seeks to craft an improved and harmonized national program and policy guides on labor and employment—particularly child labor, working conditions and mercury use—in the ASGM sector. The project includes the participation of ASGM communities and organizations in the development of these programs and policies. The goal is to prepare, build capacities and support initiatives at the local level in realizing labor and employment improvements in the ASGM setting.
The underlying premise of the project is the need to recognize artisanal and small-scale mining as a legitimate economic activity and the importance of formalizing such a sector. Formalization of the sector will enable better regulating and monitoring mechanisms that will support better working conditions and eliminate child labor and increase the access of workers and ASGM families to social protection.
Labor conditions and child labor in ASGM
Worldwide, artisanal or subsistence and small-scale mining is largely considered an informal livelihood outside of the government radar. ASGM workers toil in remote areas in harsh conditions, some with access to only crude tools.
Because it is unregulated and unrecognized by the government, labor conditions are unmonitored and fall way below accepted standards. Workers usually have no access to protective equipment and do not have fair labor contracts, healthcare, social security.
Child labor in mining, considered one of the worst forms of child labor, is common and unmonitored.
As an unregulated industry, ASGM reproduces poverty and vulnerability in many ways: it attracts unregulated migration in mining areas with all its attendant social problems, imposes progressive environmental damage including pollution from mercury use, promotes dangerous work where fundamental rights are often ignored, and provides marginal incomes.
Through the project, BAN Toxics seeks to empower ASGM communities and give them a strong and consistent voice to call on key stakeholders to aid them in their pursuit of social development.
Child labor, poor working conditions and mercury use in these communities are primarily poverty-driven. However, these problems have long-lasting effects on the physical, social and environmental health of the community members.
Resolving these issues requires a coordinated response from national and local government bodies, NGOs, ASGM communities, mining stakeholders and other relevant organizations.
Addressing the many challenges and deficits in the ASGM sector requires strengthening the ability of ASGM communities to understand and improve their situation, and the concerted support of a wide range of stakeholders—the economic actors in the sector, nation and local public authorities and public and non-government service providers—in reducing if not eliminating mercury use and child labor, improving observance of fundamental rights and safety at work, preventing further environmental degradation, and generally realizing sustainable development for ASGM communities.
CARING Gold is funded by the United States Department of Labor (USDOL) and is implemented in Ghana and the Philippines. BAN Toxics is the implementing partner in the Philippines.
For more information:
CARING Gold Factsheet (ILO)
CARING Gold project webpage (ILO)
Project information page (USDOL)