‘I need money for school’: the children forced to pan for gold in Zimbabwe’ 13 November 2020

Children as young as 10 used to cool themselves from the sweltering heat in the Odzi River on their way back from school in mineral-rich Marange, a village 90km south of Mutare in eastern Zimbabwe. Now, with the public education system collapsing and the pandemic taking a wrecking ball to their parents’ economic opportunities, children are spending whole days at the river, panning for gold or fishing for an evening meal. “I come here because we barely have anything to eat at home,” says 17-year-old Tanaka Chikwaka. In tattered, muddy clothing, Tanaka carries a bucket full of river sand, offloads it into a homemade mill which separates any precious grits of gold from the sand, and stops to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

…According to the Zimbabwe Environmental Law Association (Zela), thousands of children have been driven into artisanal – and dangerous – gold mining as families struggle to put food on the table. Since the Covid-19 lockdown, which closed schools, the number of children involved in small-scale gold mining has soared, according to Zela. Every morning dozens of young boys and girls cross the Odzi River, risking their safety, sometimes their young lives, for the yellow precious metal which is mined on the riverbeds and open pits in the surrounding areas. After last season’s failed crops, this community is hungry. And school-age children have shouldered the burden of providing for their families.

…Since the lockdown, the teenager’s family has been toiling along the riverbed but the rewards of their labour are paltry. “My mother is a vendor and also runs a huge garden but since lockdown, she cannot sell her vegetables. Hunger is our major problem, my mother can only afford one meal per day.” Munzara says she sees education as her only way out of poverty. “I just want to pass my examinations and enrol for a nursing course. But for now, I have to work,” she says. Her mother and sister are also working the riverbed. “If you come here during the week, you will find parents and their children mining for gold,” says Judith Betera.