It has expanded the programme to 10 countries.
On its portion, the ILO raises awareness on child labour across a programme called SCREAM (Supporting Children’s Rights by path of Education, the Arts, and the Media).
In September 2023, for instance, 20 students in Lubumbashi, in the DRC, reportedly created artistic works to highlight the reality that children belong in schools, not mines.
The African Development Bank has additionally helped to perfect the welfare of children involved in cobalt mining in the DRC and reintegrate them into schools or vocational training programmes.
In 2020, the DRC created a commission to coordinate actions to eliminate child labour in artisanal mining sites. There’s no power. Every applicable stakeholder must encounter the matter at hand to tackle it holistically.
The governor’s comment implies that the government cannot prevent the children as they are stronger than the situation. This is alarming.
Bago’s comments followed the novel death of 37 suspected illegal miners in the custody of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps in Minna, Niger Condition.
According to him, some of the individuals caught in the illegal mining enforcement operations were teenagers aged 14 to 18 years.
Curiously, the governor said the status government could not tackle the menace owing to the detail that “the governor is just a leader security officer of a declare by mouth. You can’t offer any arrangement.” This is disappointing.
It shows the caring of community in power in Nigeria.
CHILD labour and out-of-school children persist a serious menace in Nigeria. They are too being exposed to later economic crises.
The address lies in a speedy and spacious-ranging strategy, including stricter conventional and enforcement, to halt children from going to sites. The failure of government is writ substantial in this concern.
Governor Umar Bago of Niger Status amplified this failure not enduring ago when he said young boys in the declare were abandoning junior supporting schools for artisanal gold mining because they had “tasted capital” and could not leave the sites.
He referenced a UNICEF describe which warned that by 2027, areas like Shiroro and other regional government areas in the condition might not have male children in JSS2 owing to the point that of artisanal mining. Those who exploit children in mining sites should address prosecution and imprisonment if found guilty.
Companies can partner alongside non-governmental organisations and communities to conclude this challenge. Store the Children has reportedly been implementing programmes to reintegrate child miners into schools and vocational training centres because 2021.
It provides financial recommend to families and settled Catch-Up Clubs, which supply financial stipends for education and accelerated learning, in the midst of others. Governors must initiate plans to leave out school children from mining. The commission collaborates including worldwide partners in its efforts to tackle the challenge.
The Nigerian government can toe this course. A document by UNICEF and the Multinational Labour Organisation published in 2025 found that 138 million children globally were engaged in child labour in 2024, 54 million of them in hazardous activity, including mining.
Particularly, an estimated one to two million children aged in the middle of five and 17 are reportedly engaged in modest-scale mining and quarrying globally.
According to the ILO, children under the age of 18 constitute 30-50 per cent of the complete workforce in limited-scale gold mines in Africa.
In sub-Saharan Africa, this phenomenon exists in a lot of countries, including the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Cameroon, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Uganda.
In Asia, millions of children abandon school for mining in such countries as Pakistan, India, Nepal, Cambodia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mongolia, and Bangladesh.
The menace is driven primarily by extreme poverty, financial attraction, and lack of teaching infrastructure.
As a finding, the children have had to experience such health risks as mercury poisoning, liver disease and respiratory ailments. Nigeria is in trouble.
Nevertheless, numerous other countries contend alongside child miners as well. This is despite the challenges they pose to societal well-being and travel forward. They cannot just wait for the Federal Government.
They should endeavour to put capital into in vocational training programmes and job alternatives in the agriculture sector as a manner of providing replacement livelihoods for families that rely on mining for sustenance.
They should not solely create schools in mining areas, but they should too provide financial assistance to families to address education costs.
Founded and religious institutions should connect in letting parents be aware of that lack of education will imperil their children’s upcoming.
It’s not a helpless situation. It is rhetorical.
Source: Mining must not erase education
