Zimunya, Zimbabwe — The October sun is blazing hot in Zimunya, about 56 kilometers southwest of Mutare. Johnson Muranda (11) is resting on his pickaxe inside a mining pit.
Muranda has been here before sunrise searching for gold.
He has a uniquely awkward beginning to his day compared to his agemates.
Most boys of his age spend their pastime at home doing extra-lessons to compensate for time lost as a result of the COVID-19 imposed lockdown.
Since March this year when the government imposed a nationwide lockdown, Muranda has been visiting the area along Odzi River, daily, in search of the precious metal – gold.
The story of Muranda is a tip of the iceberg of the threatening effects of the COVID-19 lockdown on school-going children.
Zimbabwean children had been out of school for nearly seven months until the government opened schools to some exam classes in early October.
The rest of the classes are expected to open later this year.
As family incomes dwindled during lockdown, children have had to carry the mantle of fending for their needs even if it meant delving into dangerous ventures such as illegal mining. This has seen a number of Zimbabweans losing their lives in unprotected mines.
“I have been coming here since April with my friends. I sell gold to buyers from my home area. I realize about $20 per day,” said Muranda whose name has been changed to protect his identity.
Muranda, a Grade 5 student lost his father in 2015 and is now staying with his mother and two other siblings.
He is slowly graduating into a “young parent.”
“I started mining in May and used the money to buy food for my family. My mom is not formally employed and her sources of income were impacted by Coronavirus,” he said.
Muranda is not alone in this dangerous venture. Many more children from his school have answered to the lure of illegal gold mining as they seek ways to make ends meet.
Another child miner Sarudzai Muchemwa (17) works about five hours a day along Odzi River.
She too has a heart and responsibility of an older person.
“I use the money to buy food as well as clothes for me and my family,” said Muchemwa whose name has been changed to protect her identity.
Apart from looking after the family needs, Muchemwa, who is in Form 3, is saving the money to pay school fees when her class opens late October.
“We are opening on the 26th of October. My parents are peasant farmers and they struggle to raise money for my fees. So, I have decided to help them,” she said.
Zimbabwe has a long history of child labor.
In 2019, of the 50,000 children surveyed in the southern African nation, 71% were working in agriculture, forestry and fishing sectors and 5.4% were in the mining and quarrying sectors, according to the Labour Force and Child Labour Survey released by the Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency.
Adolphus Chinomwe, International Labour Organisation senior program officer based in Harare told Ubuntu Times that loss of incomes could be forcing children into illegal mining.
“The period from March up to now was postseason for agriculture and from May to June households, especially those in rural areas normally supplement with artisanal mining,” he said.
He added that the lockdown period has been long to the extent that children become “susceptible to child labour-both economic and non-economic.”
According to the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (Zela) in its report titled “Impact of Covid-19 response mechanisms on children in selected gold and diamond communities in Zimbabwe”, children have resorted to drastic mechanisms that compromise their welfare and puts their rights at risk of being violated.
Zela said children were no longer attending classes and the pandemic also drove some to engage in economic activities including illegal mining while stating that sexual exploitation is rampant in mining areas around the country.
“Since the COVID-19 induced lockdown and the closure of schools, the number of children involved in alluvial diamond and artisanal gold mining in the areas under review has increased,” said Zela.
“For diamond, the activities include milling of alluvial diamond, skirting of diamond, cooking for the syndicates and digging of diamond ore. For gold, the alluvial mining is mainly happening along river beds.”
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) defines a child or minor as a human being underage of 18.
But according to the International Labour Organisation the fundamental convention sets the general minimum age for admission to employment or work at 15 years, even at 13 for light work and the minimum age for hazardous work at 18 while 16 years is considered as well though under certain strict conditions.
Even though the Labour Act in Zimbabwe allows people under the age of 18 to be employed as part of educational training it makes it illegal for children under the age of 18 to perform any work which can jeopardize their health, safety or morals.
Without proper monitoring, observance of these laws is minimal. Children venturing into mining are exposed to dangers and are left to learn the ropes of the trade on their own.
“Fortunately, we do not use any chemicals. We first create holes on top of a 200-liter water container. We then put a carpet on top of it. Gold usually does not pass through the carpet but only soil will. This is how we separate the gold,” said Muranda.
He said he has never fallen into any open pits left by other miners.
Desperate to get money during lockdown some young girls had to engage in sexual activities with illegal miners operating in Manicaland.
“In Odzi we met young girls who are having sex with artisanal miners in exchange for money. Miners take advantage of them. They sleep with them without protection and pay them huge sums of money,” Hazel Zemura, a coordinator for Women Against All Forms of Discrimination told Ubuntu Times.
Organizations that advocate for the rights of children are concerned about the involvement of young people in illegal mining activities.
Zela said the government needs to speed up the formalization of the artisanal and small-scale mining sector to discourage the increasing involvement of children in the sector.
Mines deputy minister Polite Kambamura professed ignorance on the involvement of children in mining activities.
“Our Labour laws in the mining industry do not allow employment of anyone under the age of 18 years. If ever there are such employers they must account for such actions,” he said.
Kambamura challenged mining companies to formalize their operations.
“We encourage all miners to register and formalize their operations so as to avoid unethical work practices.”
But while solutions to child laborers and observance of law by miners continue to be sought, pupils like Muranda and many other young girls who are forced into illegal mining activities might be irreparably damaged.
They are beginning to see mining as a pastime venture with lucrative proceeds albeit its associated dangers.
“This is my only source of income. I will be back in the mining fields whenever we break at school,” he said.
