One of them is a 12-year-old boy named Saliou. Momodou is just 13 years old. This is a region of Africa where boys of Saliou's age are expected to earn money for their families. He works in a bush mine on the Senegal-Mali border in the village of Tenkoto. Senegal prohibits anyone under 18 from doing hazardous work. And mining is among the most hazardous of jobs. According to the UN, mining is one of the worst forms of child labor. However, the laws are seldom enforced.

 

Children travel from mine to mine, moving with the gold. The AP reports that 6 months after Saliou arrived in Tenkoto, it was decided that the mine was nearly depleted. So he and the boys walked for more than a week, crossed the Senegal border and arrived at another mine in Mali. It's the same story here as at the mine in Tenkoto. Teenage boys clamber down mine shafts 30 to 50 meters deep. Younger teens then yank the rocks up with a pulley. Squatting next to a plastic tub, boys of school age pour mercury onto their bare hands. Mercury attracts gold like a magnet.

 

The World Health Organization says that mercury is a potent nerve toxin and can affect the brain. It's especially dangerous for children since their nervous systems are still developing. Typical symptoms of mercury poisoning include mental retardation, loss of balance, tremors, blindness and loss of hearing.

 

“In addition to the actual work that they do is that they carry very heavy loads, they are exposed to chemicals like mercury which cause extreme danger to the, which pose an extreme danger to the nervous system, kidneys, the respiratory system, reproductive system.”

 

Once the tiny flecks of gold have been extracted, the buyers step in offering roughly $19 per gram. Once the deals are done, the gold is taken to the capital of Mali. Here the price for gold from Tenkoto is almost $23 a gram, nearly $4 more than the buyers pay the miners.

 

United Nations mining experts estimate that 10-20% of the thousands of mine workers in West Africa are children.

 

“Frankly, it's a, it's a very serious problem. We estimate about one million children worldwide are involved in small-scale mining.”

 

Precisely which products contain child-mined gold, no one can say for sure. Unlike a diamond, gold does not keep its identity on its tortuous journey from mine to market. The AP reports one prominent retailer, Tiffany & Company, has expressed concern about child labor and frustration that it can't certify its products are free of gold mined by youngsters. Because bush mines, where child labor is ubiquitous, supply a fifth of the world's gold according to the UN, the company realizes its supply lines may well be compromised. Tiffany & Company is part of the Council for Responsible Jewellery Practices which was formed to seek ways to help reduce the market for gold mined by children. But the council has found no effective way to enforce compliance.