In 2001, the International Labour Organization determined that 381 people aged under 18 worked at Cerro Rico, and that nationwide there were 10 times that many children in the industry, although the organization has said that in recent years thousands of underage workers have withdrawn from the mines.
A Potosi federation of cooperatives, formed by miners in some 50 private firms, said major employers shy away from the problem.
“Miners often lie about their age in order to work in the tunnels, avoiding state control and possible loss of their job,” a representative of the group said.
Mining employs thousands of people and generates billions of US dollars in revenue for mineral-rich Bolivia.
But regulations are considered lax, and when the state does make efforts to remove children from the mines, they brush up against a harsh reality.
Bolivian youths enter the mines because “they are poor and orphans from broken homes,” and can earn more there than in the other fields, the ombudsman for children in Potosi, Marcelino Chucucea, said.
He recognizes there are Bolivian rules on the books prohibiting child labor in unsafe conditions, but so long as there are riches to exploit, Cerro Rico will continue to demand cheap labor.
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