'Rape on the promise of gold': Illegal gold mines where some children are kept solely for sex
Many people were kidnapped from neighboring countries and promised jobs in the legal mining industry.
By Mia Jones
Post, BBC News, Johannesburg
Warning: Some details in this article may be distressing to readers
Jonathan, who worked underground in an illegal gold mine in South Africa for six months and witnessed the sexual exploitation of children there, was the most shocking thing he has ever witnessed.
Activists who spoke out say that some children were employed for low wages but others were brought in solely for sex.
Jonathan, who is in his late 20s, migrated to South Africa on the promise of easy money. He was brought in to work in dozens of disused mines that had been closed by multinational companies after they were no longer commercially viable.
We are not revealing their real identities because they risk potential retaliation from dangerous criminal gangs involved in illegal mining for speaking to the media.
Details of the treatment of minors in these illegal mines emerged after dozens of illegal miners were killed near the town of Stellfontein late last year. The mine was subsequently sealed off by police.
In a calm and steady voice, Jonathan describes the working conditions in these mines, describing the intense heat, long working hours and limited food and sleep. The toll these harsh conditions have had on his physical condition is clear.
But through it all, he remembers vividly what happened to the young miners in the shaft where he worked.
“I used to see these children, actually young boys of 15 or 17. Sometimes people would take advantage of them, it was scary and I didn’t feel good about it,” he says.
He says the adult miners would rape them in exchange for the promise of some of the gold they found during the mining.
“If the child needed the money, he would have taken the risk.”
Jonathan describes how the children approached these mining teams for protection, but “the team had certain conditions.”
Sex was also used as a punishment if a child failed to do a task assigned by their team.
Sex was also used as a punishment if a juvenile failed to do a task assigned by his team.
Jonathan says that all the children working in the mine he worked in were foreigners and had no idea what they were doing to themselves.
Mining researcher and activist Mukhotla Seifuli agrees. He says criminals specifically target children to work in illegal mines across South Africa.
Many of them were kidnapped from neighbouring countries and brought here with promises of jobs in the legal mining industry.
Seifuli says that “when they arrived in South Africa, their passports were confiscated... it is common knowledge that these young children are being exploited here.”
The BBC also spoke to other miners who worked in at least two other illegal mines and they also said that they had witnessed sexual violence against children in the mines where they worked.
Shipo (not his real name) says he saw older men force the children to have sex underground.
“Sometimes they did it for money, while others were recruited just for that purpose, because they were given financial incentives, perhaps in exchange for sex underground,” he says.
He says it all affected the children badly. “There were changes in their behavior and they developed trust issues, they didn’t want to be close to you because they felt they couldn’t trust anyone.”
South Africa’s illegal mining industry has been the subject of international news since last year when clashes between police and miners at a gold mine near Stellfontein in the North West province made headlines.
Authorities are trying to crack down on illegal mining. The South African government says illegal mining cost the country’s economy $3.2 billion last year.
According to Jonathan, adult miners used to rape children on the promise of giving them some of the gold they found during mining.
The South African government launched an operation called ‘Wala Amgodi’ (Closing the Hole) in December 2023, promising to crack down on illegal mining gangs.
As part of the operation, police restricted food and water supplies to the Stilfontein mine, which a minister said would “drive out” illegal miners.
Authorities said the men were refusing to leave for fear of arrest.
But footage soon emerged from inside the mine showing dozens of emaciated men begging for help, and many body bags could be seen. A court eventually ordered the authorities to rescue the miners.
Many of the miners who were rescued were minors, but many were migrants and had no identification documents. Their ages could not be confirmed. Authorities conducted medical tests to determine their ages.
Based on these medical tests, South Africa’s Department of Social Welfare confirmed that at least 31 miners rescued from the Stilfontein mine were minors. All of them were Mozambicans, and 27 of them were repatriated in November last year.
The South African office of Save the Children, an international children’s rights organization, helped translate interviews with some of the minors and rescue workers.
“They were deeply traumatized because some of them had seen others being sexually abused,” Gogo Saba, the head of the organization in South Africa, told the BBC.
“The mere realization that they might never get out of there was devastating to these children,” she says.
She says the children were lured in by older miners in the mines and treated as if they liked them.
She says the children were then forced to have sex with the older miners and then raped on a daily basis. “The older miners would have three or four of these children and they would do the same to everyone.”
The South African government launched the operation in December 2023 and promised tough action against illegal mining gangs.
Gogo Saba says that the mining gangs keep these children because they are easy to entertain and they get paid low wages.
“Children don’t understand when you tell them I will pay you 20 rands (one dollar) a day, while older miners sometimes refuse to work for that wage, but the children have no choice, so it is easy to put a child to work and it is easy to get them there.”
She says that in addition to exploiting them financially, these gangs also keep them for sex.
Many illegal miners spend months underground, rarely coming out of the mines during that time. Shops are also built underground to provide them with everything they need.
"Most of the children are trafficked to be used as sex slaves and there is also a broker who takes money for this work, which means that every day the child is used as a sex worker."
The BBC asked the police and the Department of Social Welfare whether anyone would be charged with sexual exploitation, but they did not respond to our requests.
A source working on the Stilfontein miners' cases said that many children did not want to testify about it.
On the one hand, the country is experiencing a booming illegal mining industry, and on the other, an estimated 6,000 potential mines are lying vacant. Illegal mining is a business that is unlikely to end anytime soon and it puts thousands of children at risk.
Related topics
#Poverty #Children_Africa #Sexual_violence #Child_abuse
#South _Africa
No comments: