In the health centre of Busia on the eastern border of Uganda lie the babies who, the local doctor reports, have suffered from mercury poisoning in the womb. Many are born premature. Others have birth defects. Some are stillborn.
Their mothers have spent their working lives bent under the baking sun. With their bare hands they swirl water and mercury around pans to bind together the specks of gold buried in crushed pieces of rock. They then burn off the mercury to obtain the gold, unwittingly poisoning themselves and those around them. The mercury affects eyesight, brain function and kidneys. It can kill.
Meanwhile, men have their own concerns: the lack of safety equipment – sometimes not even a hard hat; the possibility of walls collapsing around them as they dig underground for the flecks of precious metal which can mean the difference between feeding and not feeding their families. Brothers, fathers, children have been lost. It is gruelling work, with a tonne of ore needed to produce the few grams of gold which create a wedding ring. This ore has to be pulverised to dust, often by hand, so the process of separating the gold with mercury can begin.
It is no surprise that the average life expectancy of those working in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is just 47.
The sense of desperation in Busia is all around. People dig holes even outside their homes in search of a “find” to transform their lives. The sense of irony is everywhere too. People who are dirt poor, surrounded by dirt, yet living on top of a gold mine.
Many miners are operating illegally, ever vigilant for theft of what they have found. Middlemen take advantage of people who are as far from the internet and the true world price of gold as is imaginable, and handover just 75,000 Ugandan Schillings per gram (£13.29) for this back-breaking work.
Fairtrade is beginning to make the smallest mark and just the beginnings of belief that life can truly be different. Over the past three years eight groups of African miners, including four in Busia, funded by Comic Relief, have been working as part of a pilot scheme putting in place the necessary changes to allow them to apply for Fairtrade certification. The four groups in Uganda have undergone several trainings facilitated by Environmental Women in Action for Development (EWAD) as the Local Support Organisation, to better their mining and their communities as a whole. They are now hoping that with certification, it will up their takings to at least 95% of the prevailing gold market price.
Jacqueline Akitwi, single mother of a baby boy and three year old girl, is tentative in her wishes for a better future. She had to leave school early to take care of her two siblings and has been shovelling at the mine for five years.
Now as part of the Buteba Small Scale Mining Association, she has found support and help. The miners discuss together how they can sell their gold at a good price and not be cheated; how to set up a loan scheme so they can diversify how they make a living. The older women even give her family planning advice.
Fairtrade gold campaigner and jeweller Greg Valerio believes Jacqueline’s hopes are not in vain. “If we make Fairtrade work here – and there’s still a lot of work to do – we will have the only traceable, legal gold supply chain in Uganda. This is about more than Fairtrade. It is about establishing that it is possible to do small-scale gold mining with decency. It is about making history in Uganda.”
It is also about presenting an example of what is possible to the 5 million ASM gold miners in the African continent.
Fairtrade standards include using mercury in a confined, purpose-built, concrete pit which means the toxins cannot leach into rivers and waterways. They also include burning mercury using “retorts” - simple fume hoods - instead of in their homes and around children. It involves promoting personal safety equipment, eliminating child labour, equal treatment of men and women, environmental protection and restoration and better working conditions.
Stella Adeke of the Busia United Small Scale Mining Association (BUSSMA) works as a miner even though she has a baby of just seven months to look after, together with an eight-year-old son. “I used to use the same basin for washing gold that I used for some household duties such as washing the children and cooking. I know that my son’s shaking eyes are cause by mercury. The teacher has to give him special attention. Now I don’t burn mercury without the retort and I always use separate basins.”
Naomi Onega, another mother of two agrees, “Our children are affected by mercury. Their eyes are bad. I want my children to be miners in the future, but with proper training. They could even become mining engineers.”
Naomi says her group is full of plans about what they will do when they achieve Fairtrade certification. They are going to buy crushing equipment as ore is currently crushed by hand. They want to rent an excavator to dig the ground, and also purchase equipment which will remove the need for using mercury. The more they learn, the more they know they want.
As well as in Uganda, there are Fairtrade gold pilot schemes in Tanzania and Kenya, all funded by Comic Relief over the past three years. Some of these Ugandan miners have met with miners from Tanzania and say this has been of tremendous benefit.
Simon Wandera who heads the Syanyonja Artisan Miners Alliance (SAMA) says. “This meeting opened our eyes to new possibilities. We now want to construct an 80 foot pit – much deeper than our standard 20 foot mines.” He says their pit is now timbered and the miners are lowered down into them with rope which can no longer freefall if it is released accidentally. The miners have installed a gear mechanism to protect themselves.
Another miner, George, recalls, “We all copied our parents’ mining methods which are a form of ‘hit and miss’ mining. Now, thanks to the training we have received, we can start to organise and plan properly.”
“For the last three years we have realised we have a goal we are moving towards,” adds Stephen Engido Padde, secretary of BUSSMA. “Last year we produced 1385 grams of gold. Now we have educated children. We can afford school fees. We know our communities will not remain the same.”
These miners still do not earn a lot of money but whatever they get, they invest. They are entrepreneurial. They observe what works elsewhere and replicate it.
All they want, they all say, is a chance to change their lives. Stephen says, “We’ve been exploited for long. If we get certification, the Fairtrade Premium will help us develop. We will be able to improve our livelihoods through the natural wealth we have here. Without it, people work hard and get so very little. We cannot sustain the community. Give a chance to us.”
Fairtrade, they say, has helped open their eyes. “Since the 1930’s we have not had any development here,” says miner Josephine Aguttu. “We would come out from the mine and the middleman would be waiting to give us whatever price he had set. We had to accept it. With Fairtrade we can get a fair price. We need to stand strong on our feet. We are determined. We are at the starting point to change our community.”
Content on this page is paid for and provided by Fairtrade Foundation, sponsor of the spotlight on commodities series
