To get at the gold beneath the soil in Burkina Faso, miners sink deep pits far below the surface. The work is dirty and dangerous. Many who toil in the underground darkness are children.
Photographer Larry Price often focuses on eyes to catch the essence of a story. In the gold mines of Burkina Faso, he was drawn instead to the hands and feet of working children.
With no protection and often working barefoot, children tend to the machines that pulverize gold ore. This might be the most dangerous job in small-scale mining.
With picks in hand, children in tow, and eager for quick profits, miners follow fresh rumors of gold hoping to strike it rich in remote regions of Burkina Faso.
Photojournalist Larry C. Price captures the long workday of 9-year-old Karim Sawadogo.
A gold rush has brought new opportunities, and challenges, to the desperately poor nation of Burkina Faso in West Africa.
Gold production has more than doubled in Burkina Faso in recent years. However, that boom has led to an increase of child laborers working in cramped and dangerousl mining conditions.
On the rocky ground outside the Kollo gold mining village near the border between Burkina Faso and Ghana, about 100 people are working, 30 of them children.
In the impenetrable Dogon highlands of Mali, the clouds of war are gathering.
A small West African country leads the Mali peace process. Burkina Faso’s growing reputation for stability and influence in West Africa is a sharp contrast to its image 20 years ago.
Mali is now a nation divided, with no happy ending in sight.
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