Child Labour in Gold Mining

Hazard, poverty, and the long road to responsible sourcing in artisanal and small-scale gold mining

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Child labour in artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) is one of the most extensively documented and persistently intractable human-rights crises in the global minerals supply chain. Across sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia, children as young as five years old perform physically dangerous tasks — digging and shoring pit walls, crushing ore by hand, and handling liquid mercury during amalgamation — in exchange for wages that rarely exceed subsistence level. The International Labour Organization (ILO) classifies gold mining among the worst forms of child labour under Convention No. 182, adopted in 1999 and ratified by every ILO member state as of 2021, making it the first ILO convention to achieve universal ratification. Despite that legal consensus, field investigations by Human Rights Watch, UNICEF, and national labour ministries continue to document tens of thousands of child miners active at any given time. The problem is structural: it is rooted in extreme poverty, the informal and largely unregulated character of ASGM, and the difficulty of tracing gold — a fungible commodity — through multi-tier supply chains to the refineries and jewellery manufacturers that ultimately sell it to consumers.

Scale and Geography

The ILO estimates that approximately 1 million children work in small-scale mining globally, with gold mining accounting for the largest share. The highest concentrations are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mali, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe in Africa; in Bolivia, Peru, Colombia, and the Amazon basin of Brazil in Latin America; and in the Philippines, Indonesia, and parts of Myanmar in Southeast Asia. In some communities, child participation in mining is multigenerational and normalised: children accompany parents to mine sites during school holidays and, in areas where schools are absent or unaffordable, work full-time from an early age.

Human Rights Watch's 2015 report Precious Metal, Cheap Labor, based on field research in Mali, documented children as young as six carrying ore-laden sacks, operating hand-powered ore crushers, and panning for gold in mercury-contaminated water. A 2013 Human Rights Watch investigation in the Philippines found children diving to depths of up to twenty metres in underwater gold workings without breathing equipment. In Bolivia's Potosí department, UNICEF and national researchers have documented children working in both silver and gold operations at altitudes above 4,000 metres, where cold, thin air compounds the physiological burden of physical labour.

The Tasks Children Perform and Their Associated Hazards

The division of labour in ASGM does not spare children from the most dangerous tasks; in some cases children are specifically preferred for certain roles because of their small body size or because they can be paid less than adults.

Pit excavation and underground work. Children dig shafts and tunnels, remove spoil, and shore walls with improvised timber supports. Unlined pits collapse without warning; fatalities from cave-ins are common and frequently go unrecorded in informal operations. Prolonged exposure to silica dust in enclosed workings causes silicosis, an irreversible and progressive fibrotic lung disease that can develop rapidly in children because of their higher respiratory rates relative to body mass.
Ore crushing and milling. Hand-crushing of ore with stone pestles or mechanical stamp mills generates fine silica-bearing dust. Children operating these mills without respiratory protection inhale concentrations of respirable silica far exceeding occupational safety thresholds. Noise-induced hearing loss is an additional documented consequence of mill work.
Mercury amalgamation. In the most widespread gold-recovery method used in ASGM, elemental mercury is mixed directly with crushed ore to form an amalgam; the amalgam is then heated — often over an open flame — to volatilise the mercury and recover the gold. Children participate in all stages of this process, from mixing mercury into ore slurries by hand to burning amalgam in poorly ventilated spaces. Elemental mercury vapour is a potent neurotoxin. Chronic low-level exposure causes tremor, cognitive impairment, and damage to the developing nervous system; acute high-level exposure causes severe neurological injury. Children's nervous systems are disproportionately vulnerable because neurological development continues through adolescence. Mercury also contaminates waterways used for drinking and fishing, creating community-wide exposure pathways that affect children who never set foot in a mine.
Ore transport and panning. Carrying heavy loads of ore or water over rough terrain causes musculoskeletal injuries and spinal damage in growing bodies. Panning in mercury-contaminated rivers exposes children to dermal and ingestion routes of mercury absorption in addition to inhalation.
Processing and amalgam burning. In some operations, children are assigned specifically to burn amalgam because adults consider the task too hazardous for themselves — an inversion that places the most toxic step in the hands of the most vulnerable workers.

Root Causes

Child labour in ASGM is not primarily a cultural phenomenon, though cultural attitudes toward child work vary across affected communities. It is, at its foundation, a poverty phenomenon. ASGM provides income in rural and peri-urban areas where formal employment is absent, agricultural yields are insufficient, and social safety nets are weak or non-existent. When a household's survival depends on maximising labour output from all available family members, the calculus that keeps a child in school rather than at a mine site requires either an alternative income source or a credible, accessible, and affordable education system — conditions that are frequently absent in mining communities.

The informal structure of ASGM amplifies the problem. Unlike large-scale industrial mines, which are registered, licensed, and subject to periodic inspection, artisanal operations are often entirely unregistered. Mine operators have no legal identity, workers have no employment contracts, and government labour inspectors — where they exist — lack the resources, transport, and sometimes the political mandate to reach remote sites. In countries where ASGM contributes significantly to national gold export revenues, enforcement of child-labour prohibitions may be deprioritised against economic interests.

Gender intersects with child labour in ASGM in ways that are increasingly well-documented. Girls are more likely than boys to be engaged in ore processing, amalgam preparation, and domestic labour at mine sites rather than underground work, but their exposure to mercury and silica is no less severe. Girls at mine sites face additional risks of sexual exploitation and gender-based violence that compound the occupational hazards.

Legal Framework

The international legal architecture addressing child labour in mining is substantial, though its implementation is uneven. The ILO's Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour explicitly lists mining among the hazardous activities prohibited for persons under eighteen years of age. Convention No. 138 on the Minimum Age for Admission to Employment sets a general minimum working age of fifteen (or fourteen in developing countries under specified conditions), with eighteen as the minimum for hazardous work. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by 196 states, obliges governments to protect children from economic exploitation and from work that is hazardous to their health or development.

At the national level, most gold-producing countries have domestic legislation prohibiting child labour in mining. The gap between legislation and enforcement is, however, wide. In the DRC, for example, the Mining Code prohibits the employment of persons under eighteen in mining operations, but field investigations consistently document children working in artisanal coltan, cassiterite, and gold operations. The enforcement gap reflects limited state capacity, corruption, and the geographic remoteness of many operations.

Supply Chain Dynamics and the Jewellery Industry

Gold from ASGM operations — including those using child labour — enters the formal supply chain primarily through local traders and intermediaries who aggregate small quantities of gold and sell to regional dealers or directly to refineries. Because gold is smelted and alloyed at the refinery stage, it becomes physically indistinguishable from gold sourced through other channels. A single refinery may process gold from dozens of countries and hundreds of individual sources. This fungibility is the central challenge for responsible sourcing: by the time gold reaches a jewellery manufacturer or a bullion bank, the provenance of the metal is effectively erased unless specific chain-of-custody documentation has been maintained from the mine site forward.

The OECD's Due Diligence Guidance for Responsible Supply Chains of Minerals from Conflict-Affected and High-Risk Areas (first published 2011, revised through subsequent editions) provides the principal international framework for supply-chain due diligence in gold. It requires companies to map their supply chains, identify and assess risks including child labour, and implement risk-mitigation measures. The Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC), whose membership includes major jewellery retailers and manufacturers, requires certified members to conduct due diligence consistent with the OECD Guidance. The London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) Responsible Gold Guidance imposes analogous requirements on refineries seeking listing on the Good Delivery List.

These frameworks have improved transparency at the refinery and manufacturer level, but their reach into the informal ASGM sector remains limited. Refineries that source from ASGM are required to conduct or commission audits of their supply chains, but auditing informal and remote operations is technically difficult and expensive. Certification schemes specifically designed for ASGM gold — including the Fairmined standard administered by the Alliance for Responsible Mining (ARM) and the Fairtrade Gold standard — offer an alternative model: they certify mine-level compliance with social and environmental standards, including prohibition of child labour, and allow certified gold to be sold at a premium that is intended to support community development. As of the early 2020s, the volume of gold certified under these schemes remains a small fraction of total ASGM output, though the programmes have demonstrated proof of concept in Bolivia, Colombia, Peru, and several African countries.

Intervention Approaches and Their Effectiveness

Interventions addressing child labour in ASGM fall into several broad categories, each with documented strengths and limitations.

Formalisation of ASGM. Bringing artisanal miners into a legal framework — through simplified licensing, land tenure security, and access to formal markets — reduces the impunity with which child labour operates and creates leverage for enforcement. Formalisation programmes in Peru (under the proceso de formalización minera integral) and in several African countries have had mixed results, partly because the administrative burden of formalisation is itself a barrier for small operators.
Alternative livelihoods and social protection. Conditional cash transfer programmes and targeted support for agricultural diversification have reduced child labour in mining communities in some contexts by improving household income security. The evidence base is growing but remains geographically patchy.
Education access. Improving school quality, proximity, and affordability in mining communities is consistently identified as one of the most effective long-term interventions. Where school fees are abolished and schools are within walking distance, child labour rates decline. The ILO's International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC) has supported education-linked interventions in gold-mining communities in Mali, Tanzania, and the Philippines.
Mercury phase-down. The Minamata Convention on Mercury, which entered into force in 2017, requires parties to reduce and, where feasible, eliminate mercury use in ASGM. Mercury-free processing technologies — including direct smelting, borax-flux methods, and centrifugal concentrators — have been successfully introduced in pilot programmes in the Philippines, Tanzania, and Indonesia. Reducing mercury use does not directly address child labour, but it removes the most acutely toxic hazard from the operations in which children work.
Consumer and industry pressure. Growing consumer awareness of supply-chain issues, amplified by investigative journalism and NGO campaigns, has prompted major jewellery brands to strengthen due-diligence requirements and, in some cases, to source exclusively from certified or audited supply chains. The extent to which this translates into reduced child labour at the mine level depends on the robustness of the certification and audit systems in place.

The Gemmological and Jewellery Trade Context

For professionals in the jewellery and gemstone trade, child labour in ASGM is not a peripheral concern. Gold is the primary metal matrix in which coloured gemstones and diamonds are set; it is the dominant material by weight and value in most fine jewellery. A jeweller who sources ethically certified gemstones but uses gold of undocumented provenance has addressed only part of the supply-chain risk. Responsible sourcing frameworks increasingly treat gold and gemstones as equally subject to due-diligence obligations.

The trade's response has matured considerably since the early 2000s, when the Kimberley Process focused attention on conflict diamonds and largely overlooked gold. The RJC's Code of Practices, the OECD Guidance, and the emergence of Fairmined and Fairtrade Gold have created a more coherent, if still incomplete, architecture. Independent gemmological laboratories do not certify gold provenance — that function belongs to supply-chain auditors and certification bodies — but the broader culture of documentation and transparency that laboratory certification has established for coloured stones and diamonds has helped normalise the expectation of provenance accountability across the trade.

The persistence of child labour in ASGM is, ultimately, a measure of the distance between the aspirations encoded in international law and the realities of poverty, governance failure, and supply-chain opacity. Closing that distance requires sustained commitment from governments, industry, civil society, and consumers simultaneously. The jewellery trade, as the principal end-market for ASGM gold, bears a particular responsibility — and, increasingly, a particular opportunity — to use its purchasing power and its standards frameworks to drive change at the mine level.