The Independent
A couple of weeks ago I visited a gold mining village more than 3,000 kilometres from the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kinshasa. Here the sad reality of my country has an even harsher face. Although other provinces are facing hunger and displacement caused by fighting, in this town the population is living under particularly difficult conditions.
Some of my first views when I drove in were of mothers who had walked for miles to get water from rivers and little girls carrying heavy crates up mountains, so they could sell doughnuts and alcohol to people digging for gold. The town has a population of around one million – many of whom carry out small-scale gold mining. Children as young as nine are exposed to appalling conditions – using their hands to collect raw material, surrounded by hazardous minerals with constant risks of open mine shafts, collapsing tunnels or drowning while mining underwater.
On my trip I meet Lionel*, a 10-year-old ‘little digger’ working in the mines. He told me: “If am lucky enough to get a kilogram of gold I could buy clothes for myself and my mum, a TV and I could marry a woman and eat well.”
Lionel is not alone in his dream. Thousands of children like him are arriving from Beni, Bunia, Kisangani to the mining towns across the DRC. Hunger often drives them here – more than 43 per cent of children in the DRC are chronically malnourished. They hope of better things to come if they can make their fortune digging.
The reality though is very different to the dream. Children here are raised in a world where corruption, drugs, alcohol and guns exist at the highest level. Here school is for girls – but only the fortunate ones, who can afford to pay the fees. The few boys that are at school are mixing both activities, like 17-year-old Olivier, who told me he pays his school fees and feeds his family back home with the money he gets from digging gold.
