Side event on child slavery in the mining and the quarrying sector

The latest thematic report of the Special Rapporteur to the Human Rights Council demonstrates that the work carried out by children in the mining and quarrying sector, by its very nature and the conditions in which it is performed, qualifies as a contemporary form of slavery due to the debt bondage, forced labour and economic exploitation of the child working in artisanal mining and quarries.

On September 16, the UN Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary and the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery co-organized a side event aimed at debating successful strategies applied by NGOs funded by the Trust Fund to combat child slavery and lift victims out of slavery in this sector.

Moreover, the event provided an opportunity for governments, international organizations, civil society organizations and other interested actors to discuss the current challenges to the efforts to regulate and inspect mining and quarries sites, prevent child slavery in the artisan mining and quarrying sector and to protect and fully rehabilitate victims.