Unreported World

Bolivia's Child Miners (2010x7)

Air date: Jun 04, 2010

Unreported World descends deep underground into Bolivia's silver mines to find boys as young as 13 working long hours in deadly conditions. The thick dust and poisonous gases in the mines mean the children face the near-certainty of crippling lung disease and a life expectancy of little more than 35 years. The mines are centered around Potosi in the Bolivian Andes, the highest city in the world. Looming over it is a legendary mountain, the Cerro Rico. It has been mined for hundreds of years and is now being exploited by co-operatives of up to 10,000 miners. Reporter Seyi Rhodes and director Matt Haan meet 14-year-old Jose Luis, who works with 400 other miners at the San Jacinto mine, one of the largest on the mountain. He tells Rhodes that he's working in the mine because school starts in a few days and he needs money for a new uniform. Like most of the 200,000 people in Potosi, he comes from an indigenous Indian background. Although the indigenous people have recently won a decades-long struggle for political freedom in Bolivia they are still poorer than their white compatriots.