‘It helps us survive’: Poverty forces children into mine work in DR Congo

Rubaya, Democratic Republic of the Congo – More than a month after a mine collapse in the eastern Congolese city of Rubaya killed hundreds of people, heavy rains once again lashed the area, destabilising the open, steep mine slopes and causing another deadly landslide.

In the aftermath of the March 3 disaster, the Congolese government said 200 people had died at the Kasasa mining site, including 70 children – the majority of them labourers in artisanal mining operations in the resource-rich city.

Fifteen-year-old Mishiki Nshokano* was one of the children who survived that day.

Now recovering at an undisclosed location in the city of Goma, some 60km (37 miles) away, he tries not to think about the trauma he suffered and the friends he lost.

But he says he will soon have to return to the mines, because he has “no other choice”.

Rubaya, in eastern DRC’s North Kivu province, is a town that sits on stores of coltan, tin, and tungsten – some of the world’s most valuable minerals that are essential for use in modern technology.

But many of those who mine these raw materials used in smartphones and electric cars – especially the children – say they don’t know what the material is used for and their main concern is just getting enough to make a daily living.

Nshokano, the eldest of three children, has worked as an artisanal miner in Rubaya for the past four years to support his family.

Though child labour is technically illegal in DRC, much of the informal mining sector is unregulated.

In Rubaya and towns around it, the situation is further complicated by violence between the Congolese army and various armed groups – chief among them the Rwanda-backed M23, that seized control of Rubaya in 2024 before taking other key cities, including Goma, last year.

‘Mining is our livelihood’

At the Rubaya mine, Nshokano mainly transports sacks of coltan, earning the equivalent of 10,000 Congolese francs ($4) a day, he says.

“The little I earn, I take it home to my mum,” Nshokano says.

“She manages it so that it helps us to survive.”

Born in nearby Luunje village, Nshokano recalls his younger years attending school in a clean uniform, with big dreams of one day becoming a surgeon.

But soon, things changed for the worst and his dreams were dashed.

In 2022, when he was only 11 years old, his father, then an artisanal miner in Rubaya, died in a landslide at the Gakombe-Kalambairo mining site.

“At the time, my father was struggling to send us to school on the little he earned. I was in Year 4 of primary school and it sent shockwaves through the family,” Nshokano says.

“As mining was our livelihood, I left school to help my family survive,” he told Al Jazeera.

Before his father died in 2022, things were difficult at the mines but in some ways they were better than they are now. His father earned more than 25,000 francs (nearly $12) a day – three times what he earns – digging for coltan at “unpredictable depths”, he says.

“Things were better back then. With that, we had a place to live, food to eat and we were sent to school.

“When he passed away, everything fell apart.”

Despite DRC’s vast mineral wealth, more than 70 percent of Congolese live on less than $2.15 a day, according to the World Bank.

‘Deplorable conditions’

In DRC, employing children under the age of 18 in the mines is strictly prohibited by the Law 09/001 of January 10, 2009 on the protection of children.

This legislation is supplemented by the Mining Code (revised in 2018) and various circulars from the Ministry of Mines which ban economic exploitation, including extraction, transport and marketing by minors.

However, according to the United States Bureau of International Labor Affairs, in a 2023 report, the DRC has made only minimal progress in its efforts to eliminate the worst forms of child labour.

The report noted that there is “almost no labor oversight” in cobalt mines in eastern DRC where “labor exploitation is common”.

“In particular, small-scale mining in the region is known to involve people of all ages, including children, who often work in deplorable conditions without protective equipment, sometimes inside pre-collapsing shafts, to bring mineral-encrusted rocks to the surface or collect minerals for exportation,” it said.

The report said that despite initiatives to combat child labour, about half of the workers it interviewed said they work at mining sites where children work.

A 2019 report by the International Labour Organization also pointed out that child labour is rife in the mines where cobalt and coltan are extracted.

Nshokano claims to have seen signs in certain parts of Rubaya banning the use of children in the mining areas. But in his view, the ban just exists in theory.

In reality, he and many children find themselves trapped in the mines, in conditions that jeopardise their future.

The United Kingdom-based organisation Global Witness last month called for businesses and governments to better consider the human cost of mineral mining, following the “recent horrific mine disaster’’ in DRC.

The campaign group also exposed how coltan is smuggled to Rwanda and sold into international markets, demanding companies financing, producing, using or trading DRC’s coltan ensure that their investments and operations as well as those of their subsidiaries and suppliers “adhere to international environmental and human rights standards, and all existing Congolese laws”.

Last year, the DRC and the US signed a strategic agreement to exchange minerals for security guarantees from Washington.

According to numerous sources, the Rubaya mine, one of the world’s largest coltan mines, is among those that the Congolese government has offered to the Americans.

‘Using’ women and children

In Rubaya in recent weeks, the green hills and busy mine slopes have been obscured by fog on many days.

Rains have continued, occasionally leading to tragedy.

A few days after the Kasasa mining site landslide that Nshokano survived, another landslide happened in the area on March 6. Media reports said a few hundred people died.

Still, in the days since, mining activities have resumed as normal. Lines of artisanal miners are once again climbing and descending the mining slopes, some with pickaxes and others with sacks of wet earth and minerals.

Congolese authorities say that since the start of this year, hundreds of people have lost their lives at the Rubaya mine, which accounts for between 15 and 30 percent of the world’s coltan.

“What we have witnessed in Rubaya is extremely serious,” Patrick Muyaya Katembwe, the Congolese government spokesperson, said on his X account on Monday.

“In 40 days, more than 600 of our compatriots have died. Yet they continue to use women and children for looting activities,” he added, referring to the M23 rebels now in control of the city.

Although the Congolese mining minister said 200 people including 70 children died in the Kasasa disaster, M23 rebel leaders denied the death toll, claiming it was an “exaggeration”.

The Congolese authorities, who are in opposition to M23, appear to be vehemently condemning the use of child labour in the Rubaya mines by the rebels.

However, observers have noted that child miners in eastern DRC have been an issue long before the M23 occupied this area in April 2024.

According to the latest studies carried out by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), an estimated 40,000 children are working in mines in the DRC.

‘If no one fights for us, we won’t survive’

While multinationals make millions of dollars in profits from what is mined in Rubaya, Nshokano and his friends are involved in mining the precious resources only as a means to ensure their daily survival.

“I’ve never been properly informed about the value of this ore mined in Rubaya,” he tells Al Jazeera.

“I know it goes abroad, but I don’t know what the white people use it for … My main focus is on my survival and that of my family.”

Nshokano regrets having to drop out of school, but says he did so not out of laziness but because of the pressures of life.

“If I’d come from a financially well-off family, I wouldn’t have dropped out of school. My father’s death made me realise I had nothing left to lose … If no one fights for us, we won’t survive,” he says.

As Nshokano recovers from his ordeal, he thinks about the people he knew and lost in the landslide.

“The images of my friends with whom I worked in the mines still haunt me,” he says. “But I must soon return to Rubaya, even though anything could happen and lives could be lost.”

With the financial pressure of needing to take care of four people, he believes he needs to go back to work.

“I have no choice and I will be returning to the mine very soon,” the 15-year-old says.

“As the eldest in the family, I carry the weight of responsibility on my shoulders so as not to let my dad down, who has passed away.

“I hope that one day, everything will be all right.”

*Name changed for safety reasons