"Mines and Parents Profit From Child Labor In Uganda as Laws, Raids Have Little Effect"

...The Luggingi I mine is informal. In the industry, it’s called “artisanal,” meaning that the people who work there aren’t employees of a mining company. Safety measures are often unregulated in the artisanal mining sector, and workers earn money only when they find the minerals they seek. Before the raid, many parents, like Mpumwire, brought children with them...“My son could come and help me to wash dust mixed with water in a basin so to trace gold in lumps of rock and soil excavated from underground,” she says.

...When researchers from the Netherlands-based Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO)visited artisanal mines in Mubende district, they found that 70 to 80 percent of the people working in the area where the gold is washed were children. Most of those children told researchers that they worked five or six days per week during school breaks, and after classes and on weekends during the school year...Often, children use mercury to “wash” the gold found in the mine, SOMO found. When on-site buyers examine the amalgams produced in the “washing” process, they often burn the mercury away, as children, who don’t wear any protective gear, stand nearby.