Some of the world’s largest car manufacturers have launched an investigation into where their paint supplies come from and how the minerals are mined following an investigation by The Guardian.
The supply chains for Vauxhall, Volkswagen, BMW, and Audi have been linked to illegal mines in India where child labour is rife. The report claims that children as young as 10 are mining for a mineral called mica, used to make the "shimmery" paint found on cars.
In the September 2015 issue of WIRED magazine, Matteo Fagotto wrote about the Indian labourers caught in a culture of debt and corruption mining for this material. Read his own investigation below.
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Humans and animals seem to be absent here; the forest is completely silent, as if the trees were lifeless. Then comes the first clue we are on the right track.
Suddenly -- shining under the baking Sun -- dozens of piles of a glittery, flaky mineral appear at the side of the road. The source of these stacks of this naturally occurring substance lies a little further inside the forest: hidden in the woods, small groups of miners are busy working in what look like giant rat-holes, pounding at cave walls with rudimentary tools and sorting the debris with their bare hands. Their wicker baskets are already full of the reddish, translucent sheet mineral they're searching for. At the end of today, the few pounds they've earned will just be enough to provide for their families, but the material they have mined will end up in products found in every western home.
The districts of Koderma and Giridih, in the impoverished state of Jharkhand, are home to the world's largest deposits of sheet mica, a glittery silicate that has become an essential component in thousands of products we use daily. The mineral's stability when exposed to electricity and extreme temperatures means that mica is used as an insulator in countless everyday electronic and electrical products -- including radio and TV sets, fans, microwaves, toasters, kettles and rice cookers -- as well as in heating systems. Thanks to its glitter, mica is also employed in pigments -- from car paint to cosmetic products such as mascara, foundation and face lotions -- as well as food colouring. It also finds use as a filler in cement, plastic and rubber products such as tyres. It's in technology including breathing equipment, X-ray machines, navigation compasses, atomic microscopes and missile, laser and radar systems. In the modern, technological world, mica is used pretty much everywhere.
Depending on its quality, mica's price on the world market can range from $1,000 to $2,000 (£650 to £1,300) per kilogram. India produces 60 per cent of the world's mica, most of it from Jharkhand. But since 1980, when the Indian Forest Conservation Act was passed to limit deforestation, the industry has gone underground due to restrictions on mining in threatened areas. Today, it involves an estimated 20,000 landless and illiterate miners who are at the mercy of an unscrupulous array of agents, middlemen and exporters. Activists claim the consequences include crippling debt and environmental destruction.
Dhab is a village of mud-and-straw dwellings that house roughly 2,000 people. Here, deep in the forest, mica is so abundant it can be found in every back garden. On a hot, pre-monsoon morning, 22-year-old Gita Devi is busy working in a small hole she has opened just beside her house. Her fingers move quickly in the freshly dug soil, expertly picking out the glittery chunks. This shy young woman, whose yellow-and-green sari is already covered by a layer of dust, smiles at the dark red sheets she has just collected -- a sign the deposit she found contains high-quality mica. "I started doing this job ten years ago, together with the rest of my family," she explains hastily, her eyes fixed on the ore. Devi can collect up to 20 kilos of mica per day at a rate of ten rupees (less than ten pence) per kilo. The £2 she earns in a day spent digging under the unforgiving Sun will just about be enough to buy her children some food.
The recent history of Koderma is inseparable from that of mica. Although rich in natural resources, the region is one of the poorest in India and home to a five-decade-long, low-intensity Maoist rebellion. As the only viable economic activity in the area, mica mining has become a way of life in Dhab. Mining started in the 19th century under British rule and today's villagers are descendants of the bonded miners who were brought here from other parts of India. After independence in 1947, most remained as salaried workers during mica's golden period: from the 50s until the early 90s, around 24,000 people were legally employed in more than 700 licensed mines. But regulation of the industry and the collapse of the Soviet Union -- until 1991 the main importer of Indian mica -- means only two legal mines are still operating in the area.
With no land deeds and no farming knowledge, thousands were faced with either emigrating or starving. When a renewed demand for mica fuelled by the Chinese economic boom hit the region few years ago, the industry sprang back to life. But periodic police round-ups and the threat of imprisonment for illegal mining has made villagers wary of outsiders.
Sarita Devi, a 25-year-old from Dhab, was just 12 when she started mining with her mother. Today, her right leg is held together by a metal rod after an accident almost killed her in February 2015. "I was digging. The walls of the mine were so soft that they collapsed upon me. I fainted immediately," she says, her black, vivid eyes staring at the barren ground beside her family house. "It happens frequently, but we generally manage to escape in time. That day, I didn't."
It took Devi's parents 30 minutes to extract her from the debris and reach the hospital, where she underwent emergency surgery. The mother of four is still traumatised by the accident. Although she has started walking again, she cannot bend or crouch and is now forced to stay at home, looking after her sons and elder relatives. Once she has recovered, she knows her only option will be to return to mining. "I really don't want to go back there, but what can I do?" she asks. The eldest of two brotherless sisters, Devi has to take care of her aging parents and find a way to repay the almost £1,000 loan she took for the hospital bill. Her family earns less than 70p per day.
Some of the illegal mines in Koderma are commercial-scale enterprises with heavy machinery and hundreds of labourers, but most mica extraction is carried out by small-scale, freelance miners. As they work in makeshift underground holes, miners are often exposed to collapses and landslides -- which can be fatal. "Whenever I venture inside those holes, I don't know if I will come back alive," explains 35-year-old Mantu Turi, who has been mining since he was ten. "The only thing I know is that if I don't go, my family will not eat."
The, miners WIRED meets don't even know what mica is used for, let alone its price on the international market. The subsistence-level payment of ten rupees per kilo does not allow miners to save money to endure the rainy season, when mines are filled with water and inaccessible. So villagers have to take advances from the same agents they sell their mica to -- sometimes at monthly interest rates of 15 per cent. Loans are then repaid by reducing their payments when the mines reopen. It's a poverty cycle that worsens when there are medical bills. "Miners are de facto bonded labourers, because they cannot clear their debts," explains 39-year-old Vhinod Kumar Yadav, a local youth leader. "Some sons are still working to repay loans taken by their fathers."
Once collected, the mica is bought by freelance agents and transported to Domchanch, a nearby small town where the unprocessed ore is sold to middlemen, before being cut, refined and sorted. The town's main road is lined with workshops hosting scores of skilled men carefully cutting and cleaving the transparent mica sheets with knives and scissors, sorting and separating the different qualities of mica. Nothing is wasted. "The lowest quality mica stays in India," explains an old cutter who has been in the business for decades. "The best quality goes to America -- but most of it will be sold to China."
Contrary to the diffidence encountered in the forest, in Domchanch illegal trade is so widespread that practitioners don't even try to conceal it. Sudesh and Vivek Modi are two friendly dealers aged 29 and 30 respectively, dressed smartly in brand new shirts and jeans -- a marked contrast to the miners. Although their business is officially licensed and above board, the brothers openly admit that the mica they trade is "100 per cent illegal. But if the police come, I can manage," Sudesh explains. Dealers such as the Modis are free to operate with this sense of impunity because local politicians are unwilling to act against the trade for fear of losing votes. "The authorities mostly harass small miners, but they leave us alone. There are very powerful people involved in this business, how can they stop them?" says Vivek, while walking around the storehouse. Hundreds of sacks of mica are lined up, ready to be transported to Kolkata, where it will be exported, mainly to China.
According to the Indian Bureau of Mines, India legally produced 1,255 tonnes of mica in 2012 to 2013. Yet the quantity exported was 127,629 tonnes -- that's more than 100 times higher than the officially sanctioned figure, a clear indication of the magnitude of illegal mining. Although exporters are supposed to provide a mining licence in order to prove that the mica they bought comes from legitimate sources, "When they buy mica from us, they just ask for the bill," explains 62-year-old Suresh Jain, another middleman living in Jhumri Telaiya. He claims that most of the Chinese companies don't ask for any certificate of origin for the mined material. European countries and the US do, but Jain is adamant it's just paperwork: "This is business, they need the material," he says. "If we say, 'Mica is illegal and child labour is involved', what they will get?" Maoist rebels are not alien to the trade either, reportedly taking a cut of the profits from many businessmen working in areas under their control.
In a 2014 report, DanWatch -- an independent research organisation with a focus on conflict, human rights, the environment and corruption -- contacted 16 international cosmetic companies behind 20 global make-up brands. Twelve of them did not, or were not able to, disclose whether the mica used in their products originated in India. But instead of asking for greater transparency in the international supply chain for mica, the majority of stakeholders interviewed for DanWatch's project blamed the Indian government for not legalising the mining, a move which, in theory, would guarantee more rights to the workers and prompt the industry to modernise itself. "In the past, there were 8,000 dealers operating here. Now there are only 150," says a member of the Jharkhand Department of Mines and Geology, who asked not to be named. "How can the government stop an activity which thousands of families depend on?" This sentiment is shared by Mithilesh Kumar Singh, the Koderma district forest officer charged with protecting the woods threatened by the mining.
"The only way out is legalisation," he explains from his leafy office. "Small-scale mining is more harmful than legal mining because it's widespread, unregulated and not done in a scientific way." According to locals, damage to the forest has already caused a decrease in rainfall, affecting farming and making the area even more dependent on mica. "It is a bad signal for us, because we don't have an irrigation system and we depend on rain," explains Yadav, the Dhab youth leader and one of the few villagers owning farmland. "We are very worried about the future of this place."
Children are still involved in mining, usually working with their parents. Some stay at home to look after their younger siblings while the rest of the family mines. Lost amid a circle of women dressed in colourful saris, a young girl is busy cleaning a pile of raw material in the opencast mine of Doda Cola, in the tropical forest near Domchanch. Fulmati Kumari, aged ten, only started a month ago, and concentrates on collecting small pieces of mica from the dust. Her hands are still not used to the work. Kumari comes everyday from the village of Jampur, working from 9.30am to 4pm. "I don't like this job. It is very tough, but I can earn some money and help my family," she says, admitting that she dropped out of school to help her parents, a decision she regrets but cannot overturn. "I would like to go to school instead of being here, but I can't," she says, before rushing back to the pile.
But the industry may not continue for long. Shallow deposits are running out and the villagers lack the technology to search deeper. Young people are faced with the dilemma of leading a hard and unsatisfying life here or emigrating to work as labourers in Mumbai or Delhi. Sunita Kumari (no relation), a bright, outspoken schoolteacher of 27 who has taught in Dhab for the past 11 years, is trying to offer local children another option. "I can't change the parents' lifestyle, but I can change that of the children if they come to school," she says during a break from lessons. Now, most of the children in Dhab attend lessons and go to the mine only at the weekend or during school holidays.
However, in the more remote forest villages, child labour is still rife. "It pains me a lot that children are still involved in this," says Kumari. Although she cannot offer an immediate alternative to what children could earn if they went to work, she is sure there's no other option for Dhab. "Only education can change the future of this place," she says, looking at the dozens of happy children shouting and playing in the school courtyard.
Matteo Fagotto wrote about the effects of tin mining in Indonesia in WIRED 03.14
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
