Children - Terre des Hommes

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Accidents from blasting activities are common in stone
reported how five people were killed and six injured in a stone
quarry blast in a “freak explosion” triggered by a lightning flash
in a stone quarry at Mathur village, 15 km from Chengalpattu,
in Tamil Nadu. A local police officer explained how similar
accidents have occurred in at least two other quarries in the
area. This shows how adequate safety mechanisms have not
been put in place to protect people working in these quarries.
Children are affected when the adults in the family die or
are injured in mining accidents.
Because their bodies are growing and developing, children
working in mining are at even greater risk of being injured
or falling ill than adult workers. Ill health problems may not
become apparent until the child worker is an adult. Forced
to carry out work heavier than their bodies are designed to
cope with, children may suffer from severe back pain, spinal
injuries and other musculo-skeletal disorders. Ill health
problems may not become apparent until the child worker
is an adult. A study carried out amongst children working
in mines in Nepal showed that the frequency of injury
explaining that they get injured very frequently, frequently or
occasionally. Children are also forced to work under direct
sunshine and are exposed to high temperatures, particularly
in India where the mining and quarrying “boom” season takes
place just before the monsoon, when temperatures reach over
The CHILDLINE study of the limestone mines of Junagarh
district, Gujarat, found that a large number of children
working in these mines were suffering from occupational
health problems, such as frequent coughs and colds as
well as skin diseases. However, a lack of awareness in the
community about the health hazards of mining meant that
people were attributing these problems to the climate, or not
knowing what was causing them to fall sick. They were not
relating it to the work they were carrying out.
Of course, because the employment of children in mining
is banned, there are no records to show the number of
children injured each year in mining accidents in India.
However, anecdotal evidence from the mining areas suggests
that accidents and injuries are common. According to a
register kept by Santulan in Maharashtra, they had records
of 31 cases of major mining accidents, which had taken place
three cases were children. However, this data is incomplete
and therefore cannot be taken as an accurate reflection of
the situation of mine accidents, as records are not being
maintained properly either by the mine workers, mine owners
or by local organisations. Most of the time, the mine owners
provide first aid and primary treatment but no long term
treatment or compensation, however serious the injury. In
many cases, workers have been made permanently disabled
and could not continue work, which pushes the burden of
family survival on the children. A women’s group in Moshi,
Maharashtra told the researchers that a 15-year-old boy had
recently been killed in an accident whilst working in a stone
quarry nearby. The CHILDLINE study in Gujarat found
that 30 per cent of the children interviewed had experienced
accidents whilst working in the mines, mostly from breaking
stones and blasting.
Health impacts because of living
near mines
Living close to the mining sites brings its own set of
health problems. The most well documented is the impact
of uranium mining, with the radiation known to cause
serious illnesses and diseases. Although the government
insists that there is no threat of radiation to local people or
health hazards from the uranium mining, local residents tell
a different story in Jaduguda, Jharkhand. The radioactivity
associated with uranium and nuclear waste dumped in
this area has been a cause of major health hazards, and
severe deformities have been observed among the children
of the area. 100 Women living in close proximity to these
uranium mines in Jaduguda, where radiation levels have
been scientifically proven to be above the permissive limits,
have experienced a number of reproductive health problems
with high rates of miscarriages and children being born
94. Express Buzz, Dennis Selvan, Five killed in stone quarry blast, 20 November 2009, http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=Five+killed+in+sto
ne+quarry+blast&artid=8%7CXU1eGNYq8=.
95. ILO, Eliminating Child Labor in Mining and Quarrying: Background Document, 12 June 2005.
96.
Ibid.
97. CHILDLINE India Foundation, Living with Stones – Children of the mines, part of the Children at Risk report series, 2008.
98.
Interviews carried out in Moshi, Maharashtra, September 2009.
99. CHILDLINE India Foundation, Living with Stones – Children of the mines, part of the Children at Risk report series, 2008.
100. Ranjan K. Panda, Undermining Development, 2007, http://www.skillshare.org/skillshare_india_underminingdevelopment.html, uploaded: 20 October 2009.