[miningmx.com] – COMPANIES buying gold from Ghana should “exert control over their whole supply chain” in an effort to combat child labour in the west African country, said Bloomberg News citing a report from Human Rights Watch.
“Ghana’s unlicensed gold mines are very dangerous places where no child should work,’ according to the report. “Companies buying gold in Ghana should exert control over their whole supply chain to make sure they’re not benefiting from child labor,’ it said.
The New York based organisation also said Ghana should better enforce its laws to prevent thousands of children from working at small-scale mines in Africa’s second-largest producer of gold.
The children work alongside family members or on their own, often to help pay school fees, said Bloomberg citing extracts from the report. Child mine workers were mostly aged 15 to 17 years old, but many said they had been working since the age of 12.
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