In response to appearing on the Queen’s New Years’ Honour list 2016, jeweller and activist Greg Valerio said fairly traded jewellery provides producers with a “legacy of peace, justice and prosperity”. That is what we have been working to achieve as part of a pilot project that Valerio has supported together with artisanal miners from east Africa.
When I visited Migori, a Kenyan community close to the Tanzanian border, last year, I was welcomed by Bismarck Onyando, chairman of the MICODEPRO mining co-operative. 90% of the labour force involved in gold mining is made up of small-scale miners who work in small groups or by themselves with minimal or no machinery and produce just tiny volumes and often work in difficult, sometimes hazardous conditions. MICODEPRO was one of nine co-operatives across Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda funded by Comic Relief to learn new techniques, safer practice and more efficient means of extracting gold. This training is an important first step in the journey towards becoming Fairtrade certified, which they have all now applied for.
As well as MICODEPRO there are some 10,000 informal gold mines in Migori county alone, a small proportion of the vast numbers of people scratching a similar, meagre living across the African continent, taking a chance that they too might strike gold.
Mining for gold in this way is a dollar a day existence. It can occasionally be relatively lucrative if the miners hit a good seam of gold ore.
For a few grams of gold miners descend a pit over one kilometre deep in the African soil to extract ore which is then crushed by hand and mixed with toxic liquid mercury by the bare hands of women and children. These workers pay a high price in terms of their health but earn very little.
Most of these miners are tied into confusing cycles of debt. They are indebted to the owner of the land on which the pit is situated. MICODEPRO, for instance, has to pay a 40% cut of the miners’ earnings to the landlord. Miners are also indebted to middlemen who loan them money to buy mercury and equipment. Typically miners will work one shift per week to repay each of their debtors, then a final shift for themselves.
As Bismarck and his group build a new pit following the safety requirements which Fairtrade enforces, they work alongside other miners in other pits, who are making money but are not using any protective gear. The others mine bareheaded in broken shoes and ripped vests and shorts. They descend on manmade wooden ladders into complete darkness with the smallest of torches tied to their heads with an elastic band.
Outside, the women of the wider community use hammers to crush the rocks brought out from the mines, pounding them into smaller pieces, one sack after another. The rubble then gets put in bowls with water and mercury, and is swirled about with bare hands. It’s a clear sign of the sheer size of change that needs to happen.
The miners talk of their regret about not knowing mercury is poisonous. “We are so sorry,” says one. “We used to do panning using our bare hands. We used to burn and inhale the air. So many people have been affected for life in this area. Their hands shake. Their lungs have been ruined. We are explaining to other miners in the region about the dangers of mercury.”
They talk about animals drinking river water polluted with mercury and dying; the same river where local people wash their gold, their children and clothes. Fairtrade regulations are there to ensure mercury does not run into the local water supply.
Once the gold has left the miner’s hands, they never see it again. According to Valerio, most of the gold makes its way across the border to Uganda, then to Dubai for refining and then on to China. China and India are currently the biggest gold markets in the word. Demand for gold is growing in these countries, but concern over where it comes from and the grief it leaves behind, is perhaps not.
In 2015 America’s Dodd Frank Act came into force. This requires US companies to provide information identifying the source of their gold, to prove they have addressed the risks that their gold might be conflict minerals (traded by armed groups). One unfortunate side effect has seen American companies avoid buying gold from unregulated, informal miners like MICODEPRO and other groups in the Great Lakes region of east Africa as they will not have the paperwork and be able to get these official guarantees.
This makes the work that Fairtrade is doing in Kenya even more vital. As well as offering these communities protection by improving their understanding of health and safety and environmental issues, Fairtrade offers a small but potentially trailblazing transparent supply chain. US buyers can come back to the region, together with all others who want ethics with their sparkle.
The present looks grim, but for these communities who are working towards becoming certified, Fairtrade Gold may just symbolise the “peace, justice and prosperity” they all want to see.
Soon the miners will be able to start extracting ore from a new safer pit they have built. They are already talking about the plans they have for spending their Fairtrade Premium once they become certified, the extra money which comes with Fairtrade sales. There are beginnings of a loan fund for individual members so they won’t get indebted to middle men. They have dreams of building their own office, of investing in secondary schools and clean water.
One miner, Johannes Ojowi, tells me of his dream that future generations will not just mine, but also find other ways of making a living for the benefit of future generations. “Maybe they will keep cows, sheep, goats and fish and the environment will be protected,” he says. “Fairtrade has enlightened us here. It has taught us how to mine, to be safe.”
These are small steps, but for this small group of miners the future does seem different. MICODEPRO members are clear. History is being made.
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