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Article

5 Jun 2010

Author:
Channel 4 [UK]

[video] Bolivia's Child Miners

Unreported World descends deep underground into Bolivia's silver mines to find boys as young as 13 working long hours in deadly conditions. The thick dust and poisonous gases in the mines mean the children face the near-certainty of crippling lung disease and a life expectancy of little more than 35 years. The mines are centered around Potosi...[in] Cerro Rico. It has been mined for hundreds of years and is now being exploited by co-operatives of up to 10,000 miners...The boys are loading up huge bags with up to 800 kilos of rocks...Jose Luis tells Rhodes that his grandfather, grandmother and uncle have all mined the Cerro Rico before him...his uncle can't work because he has a degenerative lung disease...Tunnels in the mines regularly collapse and people are often killed inside them...The team talks to a local doctor and expert in silicosis, a lung disease that kills miners. He explains that if a child starts in the mine at 10 or 11, he can expect to have silicosis by the time he's 20 and be dead by 35...