HRW: Children risk death in Philippines' underwater gold mines

[unhappycamper]

http://www.dw.com/en/hrw-children-risk-death-in-philippines-underwater-gold-mines/a-18747537

A new report accuses Manila of failing to protect children who dig and dive for gold in small-scale mines, saying they are at risk of drowning, suffering decompression sickness and bacterial skin infections.

HRW: Children risk death in Philippines' underwater gold mines
Gabriel Domínguez
30.09.2015

"Sometimes you have to make it up fast, especially if you have no air in your hose if the machine stops working. It's a normal thing. It's happened to me." These are the words of 16-year-old Joseph, speaking to Human Rights Watch (HRW) last November on how he risked drowning while diving for gold in one of the many underwater deposits found in the Philippines, a practice known locally as "compressor mining."

The boy from the town of Santa Milagrosa, located some 340 kilometers (211 miles) southeast of the capital Manila, is one of the 135 people - including 65 child miners between the ages of 9 and 17 - interviewed by the human rights group over the past two years for a report on how thousands of children in the Southeast Asian country risk their lives every day in underwater gold mining.

Titled "What … if Something Went Wrong?," the 39-page document released on September 30 focuses on the hazardous conditions children face while working in illegal, small-scale gold mines, mostly financed by local businessmen, in the eastern provinces of Camarines Norte and Masbate. "Underwater mining for gold puts adult and child miners at risk of drowning, decompression sickness, and bacterial skin infections," said HRW.

The children work in unstable 25-meter (80-foot) deep pits or underwater along the coastal shore or in rivers, processing gold with mercury, a toxic metal. The rights experts explained that while diving for several hours at a time in 10-meter-deep shafts, the miners - adolescent boys and mostly adult men - receive air from a tube attached to an air compressor at the surface. But if the diesel-powered compressor stops working, miners can drown or get "the bends" coming up too quickly.