in Mbuji-Mayi, DRC
Tukudimuna Child Labour Project
Of the many issues surrounding the artisanal diamond mining industry, child mining is one of the most problematic. The practice is both exploitive and harmful, and has been identified by the ILO as one of the worst forms of child labour. Without direct action countries with child mining risk the future of their youth and the country as a whole.
Building on the ILO’s programme “Minors out of Mining”, which aims to eliminate child labour in small-scale producer countries completely by 2015, DDII has created its own pilot project to remove children from artisanal diamond mines in the Mbuji-Mayi region of DRC. The objective of DDII’s pilot project is to remove about 700 children in the age range of 14-17 and integrate them into a specially designed educational programme that will allow them at the completion to opt for higher education, or to take advantage of other viable economic opportunities. Targeting this age group will have the largest impact on the community, on the economy and on the development of the country.
The project aims to be a learning project from which governments, donors and international NGOs may learn valuable lessons for application and replication in different cultural, mining and political environments, as well as, in other regions of the country. Different approaches are being taken to children, their parents and local leadership in three different communities, to determine which inputs are most cost-effective and sustainable over time. As a pilot project and one that aims for replicability, it will be essential that the overall objectives are achieved in as cost-effective a manner as possible.
DDII’s Tukudimuna Child Labour pilot project seeks to prevent and remove children from working in the diamond mines in the Mbuji-Mayi region; to understand the dynamics and the political economy of child labour in artisanal diamond mining; and to find sustainable and replicable methodologies to end this practice.