In Nigeria's lithium boom, many mines are illegal and children do much of the work
Growing demand for the lithium used in batteries for electric vehicles and energy storage has created a new frontier for mining in Nigeria
NASARAWA, Nigeria — Dressed in a faded pink dress, 6-year-old Juliet Samaniya squats under scorching skies to chip at a jagged white rock with a stone tool. Dust coats her tiny hands and her hair as she works hour after hour for less than a dollar a day. The landscape around her is dotted with active and abandoned mineshafts, farmland that may soon be cleared in search of more rich ore, and other mine workers — many of them children.
Juliet should be in school, her mother, Abigail Samaniya, admits. Instead, she spends her day mining lithium, a mineral critical for batteries needed in the global transition to clean energy, to earn money that helps sustain her family.
“That is the only option,” Abigail Samaniya said.
The International Labour Organization estimates more than 1 million children work in mines and quarries worldwide, a problem particularly acute in Africa, where poverty, limited access to education and weak regulations add to the problem. Children, working mostly in small-scale mines, work long hours at unsafe sites, crushing or sorting rocks, carrying heavy loads of ore, and exposing themselves to toxic dust that can cause respiratory problems and asthma.
The growing demand for lithium has created a new frontier for mining in mineral-rich Nigeria. But it has come with a steep cost, exploiting its poorest and most vulnerable: its children. Their work often provides material for Chinese businesses that dominate Nigeria’s laxly regulated extractive industry and are often blamed for illegal mining and labor exploitation.
The Associated Press recently traveled to the deep
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