50,000 Peruvian children with parents working in artisanal mining. breathe mercury vapor and not go school; sometimes receive tips.
Just one hour of urban Lima and 500 meters of a provincial road rises at the foot of a hill in the desert, Rio Seco, a dusty village consists of a dozen wooden shacks and mats, a billiard table, 3 suspects accommodations, a karaoke bar, 2 sheds in which rent showers and a grocery store. Rio Seco
enjoys the "privilege" of being in limbo. And its location on the border with the province of Lima and the police forget HuarochirĂ facilitates and enables the operation of 80 quimbaletes artisanal gold or mortars.
"No to Child Labour" says an old and faded sign placed in the fence of the first mill, which the owner gives us access to scowl. They run about 15 of these handicraft quimbaletes, which act as giant stone mortars. Previously crushed ore in the mill is placed at the base of the mortar, where it is mixed with water and mercury for amalgamation. Erick
pray in the works 12 quimbalete. ore deposit in the mortar and enable the gold particles join with the mercury.
Ruby is the youngest child found in the quimbalete. Barely one meter foot, presents extreme thinness and move a huge boulder perched barefoot on the edge of a plank of wood. At the other end of the plank is a grown man acting as a counterweight. "She helps her dad," says a lady.
Sad and embarrassed, Ruby to be photographed. Soon after, he escapes the quimbalete. "Hey, wait, not run." After a brief chase decides to stop running and talking to us. Carabayllo says it is, a district poor of Lima near Rio Seco. Tose
often as she talks and her eyes and nose irritation. He does not like working in the quimbalete. Also, do not get paid.
- "I help my cousin and sometimes just give me a tip" - "And your mother?" Neither her mother
nor her father are with her in Rio Seco. She said that one comes and goes every day from his home in Carabayllo, something hard to believe. Alongside
quimbaletes are cabins with mattresses on the floor. There is resting Theodora, 71, while her husband, 75, works at the mill. We said she was ill, he burns the chest and can not breathe.
- "Ma'am, you should use gloves when handling mercury" - "It just the little hands, we threw. Do not know, because ..." This marriage Andean
sleeps in the cabin, a service provided by the owner of the mill during the days that the miners used to wash the gold extracted on a nearby hill. Grinding the ore
Most people who work here are grinding the ore to be removed from the pit with their hands. In exchange for the use of mills, the owner is left with the tailings, ie the excess water from the amalgamation process which, due to the rudimentary nature of the method still has 30% of the ore and, especially, large amounts of mercury.
visit another mill. There is Erick, 13. "There are many young people who work in the quimbaletes" he says.
Erick, Carabayllo also works from 6 am to 6 pm in the quimbalete and charged 30 soles (10 dollars) a day. When energy left after working hours, goes to school on the night shift.
In 2001, a study by the International Labour Organization disclosed that 50 000 Peruvian children working alongside their families in informal mining. Almost 10 years later there have been no new surveys in mining camps, which have increased in all regions of country result of rising gold prices after the global economic crisis.
On that occasion, the ILO census proved that children work mainly in hauling heavy blocks of ore in trucks to processing centers and 'the quimbaleteo', the most toxic process of washing of gold.
Mercury in the brain
Met Rio Seco access by the Ombudsman, an institution concerned about the health of the thousands of people living in Rio Seco, and mills. According to a study sponsored by this instance, nearly 20% of people who have been tested have mercury levels in their bodies above the recommended maximum.
At this point in the visit, we all began to bite the throat and reddish mud splashes of quimbaletes permeates our clothes. We are more than 30 degrees in the sands of Rio Seco.
Mercury is a metal that is evaporated from 20 degrees Celsius and produce toxic fumes are odorless and colorless. The main route of exposure to mercury is by inhalation, which are absorbed by the lung tissues. From the lungs travels through the blood supply to the brain becoming a poison for the nervous system. Mercury causes neurological disorders such as tremors, headaches, insomnia and even memory loss. In high amounts
leads to death, as you well know the people of Choropampa (Cajamarca-Peru), victims in 2000 of a mercury spill caused by the giant Yanacocha gold mining company.
Source: Beatriz Jiménez - Lima - El Mundo.
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