Story

Philippines and Indonesia: Children Mine for Gold at Great Cost to Health

February 28, 2014 | Pulitzer Center
By
Larry C. Price, for the Pulitzer Center

Miners use their hands to squeeze a ball of mercury through a piece of nylon cloth to form an amalgam of gold and mercury. Mercury binds tiny particles of gold when added during panning or crushing stages. The mercury is then burned off using a torch to reveal pure gold. Image by Larry C. Price. Philippines, 2013.

A gold miner uses heat to soften rock in a tunnel on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Tunnel collapses are common. Image by Larry C. Price. Indonesia, 2013.

Tasya Sutisna, 12, works in a mine beneath Cisitu, Indonesia. Image by Larry C. Price. Indonesia, 2013.

Tasya Sutisna, 12, works in a mine beneath Cisitu, Indonesia. Image by Larry C. Price. Indonesia, 2013.

Tasya Sutisna, 12, washes mud off his clothes with rain water after emerging from a mine shaft Cisitu, Indonesia. Image by Larry C. Price. Indonesia, 2013.

A miner comes directly in contact with mercury while working in a ball mill ore-processing facility in the Philippines. Image by Larry C. Price. Philippines, 2013.

Miners use their hands to squeeze a ball of mercury through a piece of nylon cloth to form an amalgam of gold and mercury. Image by Larry C. Price. Philippines, 2013.

Miners use their hands to squeeze a ball of mercury through a piece of nylon cloth to form an amalgam of gold and mercury. Image by Larry C. Price. Philippines, 2013.

Miners work at Santa Barbara, panning with mercury. Image by Larry C. Price. Philippines, 2013.

On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, thousands of miners hack apart mountains in the Poboya Paneki Grand Forest Park and use mercury to process the ore. In the Hampalit area of central Borneo, an army of miners clear-cuts the swampy rainforest and dredges up the soil in the hunt for gold, poisoning the environment and themselves with mercury and leaving thousands of acres of wasteland.

The two neighboring Southeast Asian nations, made up of some 25,000 islands, officially ban child labor, the burning of mercury and most small-scale gold mining. But in both countries, pervasive corruption, payoffs to local officials and weak central governments make it difficult to curb these practices, especially in remote areas.

“That’s the problem in developing countries,” said Halimah Syafrul, assistant deputy for hazardous substance management in Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment. “Our government can be bribed. Money can talk.” Image by Larry C. Price. Philippines, 2013.

Chinese-made sodium cyanide crystals are used in gold processing in Indonesia. Image by Larry C. Price. Indonesia, 2013.

Ridaeni, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name, was living in the village at the base of the mountain when the gold rush began. She claimed four mine shafts and pays miners a share to work them.

She estimates that more than 1,000 miners work on the mountain. Of these, about 50 to 100 are children, she said. Many more children work in other parts of the park where the mining has spread.

“A lot of children work here,” she said as she sat under a tarp near the opening of one of her mines. “Most of the kids are dropouts from school. Some start at age 5 pounding the rock with hammers, filling the bags and fetching water. It’s sad, but the parents come here for work. They travel as a family and work as a family.” Image by Larry C. Price. Indonesia, 2013.

Nearby, Yoyo, 10, and his friend, Duku, 8, hammer on rocks to break them up. The two barefoot boys are working in a 20-foot-deep hole with Yoyo’s mother, grandmother and half a dozen other family members. Duku’s parents work nearby. The boys load the broken rocks into bags and carry them to the surface.

Yoyo’s mother, Hayati, 29, applauds her son’s efforts.

“He loves to work here,” she said.

Yoyo, wearing filthy matching yellow shorts and shirt, has never been to school. He can’t read. He has never used a computer. Hayati said she makes less than $5 a day and cannot afford books and shoes for him. But she said she is not concerned about his future.

“It’s better to be with his family,” she said. Image by Larry C. Price. Indonesia, 2013.

Runoff containing mercury pollutes the ground water and the rivers, ultimately contaminating fish and other food sources for Filipinos.

When the gold ore is contained in chunks of rocks, children often are used to break the rocks into smaller pieces. This boy holds a chunk of rock in place with a leather strap while he strikes it with a hammer. Image by Larry C. Price. Indonesia, 2013.

Other young boys haul buckets and bags of crushed rock to the ball mills—homemade contraptions outfitted with motors, pulleys and large barrels.

The rock is tumbled in the barrels—sometimes with a mixture of mercury, occasionally with cyanide—until it is reduced to a sluice the consistency of runny cement. Image by Larry C. Price. Indonesia, 2013.

Diwalwal mining community north of Davao on the island of Mindanao, the Philippines.

Two girls walk past a waterfall polluted by mercury and rendering the water supply unsafe. Image by Larry C. Price. Philippines, 2013.

Here a boy checks a gambling machine for coins during an idle moment at a gold mining processing facility in the center of the community. Image by Larry C. Price. Philippines, 2013.

Diwalwal mining community north of Davao on the island of Mindanao, the Philippines. Gold drives the entire economy of the village and mercury background levels are many times the World Health Organization standard for allowable environmental levels. Image by Larry C. Price. Philippines, 2013.

Diwalwal mining community north of Davao on the island of Mindanao, the Philippines. Image by Larry C. Price. Philippines, 2013.

For small-scale gold miners in the Philippines and Indonesia, separating gold from rock and sand is primitive, tedious and often dangerous work. Miners, including teenagers and children, are often exposed to mercury, which is used to separate gold particles from crushed rock and sludge. Mercury can be absorbed through the skin, ingested in food and water, or inhaled from vapors, is highly toxic. It can cause a host of physical problems, including nerve and brain damage.

Runoff containing mercury pollutes the ground water and the rivers, ultimately contaminating fish and other food sources for Filipinos.

When the gold ore is contained in chunks of rocks, children often are used to break the rocks into smaller pieces. Young children haul buckets and bags of crushed rock to the ball mills—homemade contraptions outfitted with motors, pulleys and large barrels. The rock is tumbled in the barrels—sometimes with a mixture of mercury, occasionally with cyanide—until it's reduced to a sluice the consistency of runny cement.

Processors pour the sluice into large shallow pans and add mercury. As they swirl the slurry, the mercury binds to the gold and sinks to the bottom of the pan. The sludge is drained off until a film of gold mixed with mercury remains at the bottom of the pan.