does the government claims to. conspiracy theories spread like wildfire on the internet. in this interest or is the fairies can provide comfort in times like reality create another version. of. a film about knowledge and belief trust and deception. democracy of the goa boy starts joy 1st on t.w. . we are in john cat northern india it's one of the poorest regions in the country deep within these rocky crevices around 20 men and women are foraging through the rubble looking for the shimmering mineral mica there are thousands of mines like this in john kept yet they are not run by big corporations all of the miners work

for themselves. between 10200 rupees depending on the budget prize. i have to start i hope basketful like this one here too on the equivalent of one euro $0.25 apiece women work 8 hours a day of the blazing sun what else can i do. i'd rather work in the life and die of starvation than. the hills of this desert like landscape on full of a mineral mind. you have to do is bend down and pick it up in early strips unknown to most people the roma to really is used in a multitude of everyday products. in automotive paints for example. or as an insulating material for alec.

charnock components are. mostly there it is used in the cosmetics industry and when . into a powder is found in almost every time of cosmetic. mica here michael ware. everywhere but who pays the price for our glittery cosmetics. one. down in the valley children are gathering my girls when they are aged between 6 and 9 when. the of. but it is. unlikely to. upload out their genitals the with.

the words of. their wages they get in and out of the office. of. the it. to find out more about the importance of mica in the beauty industry we had to because medical training fat and. there are no stands for the likes of chanel do your l'oreal here the big brands don't make their own products they are outsourced to retaliate manufacturers. mind is an essential ingredient in make up such as must skara lusha lipstick and foundation. so what is mica me cry. everything i do michael is

a shimmery material which puts the glitter into powders and creams means half what you have the effect it produces the shimmering glowing effect on the skin. it's in foundation in lipstick my cousin everything. it's a key ingredient yes and cosmetics especially in the decorative department i'd say it's one of the most important. manufacturers now plenty about the formulas of their product. but do they know where they're wrong materials are so lost. that swiss yank yes miley as we'd need to scrutinize the documents every time. and in principle we'd have to ask our suppliers how. the industry is aware of the issue of child labor and is trying to tackle it. many firms rely on the information given by

suppliers. get it. and they give every roll material has it's own documentation if this is delivered along with the order of the material for example with mica. it's documented in the computer so we know exactly which product has been manufactured from which batch of raw material. you can trace it back to the mine right exactly but does this really work. micah can be found all over the world. you asked brazil canada and south korea are among the largest countries to extract it. however china and india are way ahead 30 percent of all my imported into europe comes from india. officially indian my current production comes from russia star in practice almost 90 percent of the my german

mind in india is from the states of jharkhand and be hard mica mining and extraction are illegal than. in the ninety's the state declared these miles of wild fowl is a nature reserve in order to protect them the old fart is back and all my care mining. however are drone footage shows a different picture. countless craters are testimony to the extent of mining in the region it is mostly local villagers who work here even in areas that are very difficult to access. some of the micro miners use dynamite to get into the mountainside. others dig almost surveys using rudimentary tools we try to establish contact with them we

want to understand how they have been mining miter illegally for over 40 years and in spite of the bank. it was not easy to spot them in this rough terrain. after searching for several days we finally came across a family. is 25 years old he comes with his wife and children to collect micah every day. and micah is our only option we all come here to work we can make about 302400 rupees so we can buy rice and feed ourselves. with. what do you want for your children. i want them to be able to study to do something with their lives i want them to have a good job. average daily wages between 3 euro zone and 5 euros he hasn't always been

a micro gatherer just 2 years ago he was working as a farmer he lives in this village of 60 inhabitants at the foot of the mines there is no running water or electricity here despite the brand new elektra city mass the families livelihood used to be farming but drought and climate change have now made most of the land barren. i am. this is my land here all of this. can you still farm on this land. if there's no rain the nothing can grow it's to drive. the. extraction of mica has become an indispensable source of income for more than a 90 percent of john cans population. miners are willing to take huge risks to get hold of the mineral they have to dig deeper and deeper into the mountain to find it. the sounds coming from

a mind narrow well catch our attention. so i. have a house don't worry we're not police ok no problem in. africa what is your name and i run saying how do you manage to work down there. return. when you're hungry you aren't afraid to go down it's true that it's dangerous work but what else can you do we have to eat i don't have much choice i don't have much education and i don't get any state support.

is that he 5 years old and has 2 children he agrees to let us follow him into the tunnel he has built every month around a dozen miners from the region die in these dangerous underground quarries. almost 15 meters underground the air is very stuffy it's around $45.00 degrees and there is nothing shoring up the tunnels which could collapse at any minute. cannon and his friend ravi spend around 8 hours a day here in the darkness an ordeal that earns them around $300.00 rupees a day the equivalent of 3 euros $0.80. i have worked here for 4 months a lot of people worked here in the past even our grandfathers were digging here 40 or 50 years ago are you aware that people die due to these mines collapsing. i'm

scared for my life like anyone would be but what else can i do there aren't too many accidents here if god so chooses it will happen but for now they haven't been any disasters here. where they were a guest at the half hour we knew my. doesn't it worry you that what you're doing is illegal. the police came around 4 or 5 months ago they told us that it's illegal and that we should stop by even tried to scare us a few times but how are we going to feed ourselves if we don't come here. the 2 miners live in 23 a town with

a population of around 4000 people surrounded by my charisma. micah mining is the main source of income here 3 years ago the town was struck by a mining disaster. i needed a v lost her husband in the accident she has 4 children. like this sit down and eat that. anita is illiterate like most of the villagers and joc out. i don't know how old my parents don't remember. anything nor can you tell us about your husband. michael. one of the one my client my husband left to work in the mines he went deep underground and was buried in a landslide. did others die over there yes 3

others. since her husband died anita is the sole provider for her family every day she walks 2 kilometers along a stony path under the hot sun to the summit of this mountain when her children don't have to go to school they go without the youngest is just 4 years old. the children help me by gathering the rocks. we break them up and then collect all the little stones. i don't know and that not because there are only little stones here. if you lose the battle if. it's one of those. show it to me right away or cross.

if this is my daily ordeal working in the heat i can deal with the hunger of my children can't i won't let them starve i have to work because i don't have any land to farm. off to 3 grueling hours anita and her children have collected enough mica to feed themselves for a day. many highly profitable businesses rely on these people slogging away. at the end of each day the valley villagers take what they've gathered to connection points where the mica is sold by weight. put it down here small traders are at the bottom of the supply chain they supply mike at a local wholesalers. the locals directors to the wholesalers who buy their goods.

there are several dozen collection points in the town center. is the only game in town. but for us the wholesalers refuse to talk to us but eventually one of them agrees to answer all questions. oh yeah there's the mike i come from it comes from the mines. ditter small traders bring it to you. yes. the wholesaler openly admits that the mica is sourced from illegal mines but as soon as we start to talk about child labor he starts to hedge. would like to ask you about children working in the mines.

there aren't any children working in the mines. that's false information. that the children bring food to their parents when they're working in the media take photos of it. a lot of the metal. with. the so children don't work there no. new exporter michael yourself. we sell it to the exporters then it goes to mumbai china germany and so on. who buys it in germany.

so he says the german corporate group america is one of the main buyers of the miter produced in the region. is one of the largest corporations in europe with an annual turnover of around 15000000000 euros. the pharmaceuticals giant is also a leading producer of cosmetics and chemical products and one of the key suppliers of wrong materials to the cosmetics industry. its subsidiaries khana rona and tim are on supplying to major brands such as l'oreal chanel and grill. we are committed to labor standards human rights environmental protection and are opposed to every type of corruption. max code of conduct contains

a commitment to 0 tolerance of child labor it sounds comprehensive annual or did say include the control of relevant documentation workers ages working hours and wages as well as compliance with environmental safety and health standards by means of boards we strictly monitor the compliant behavior of our partners but does it really work we head for kodama in the north of jharkhand this town with a population of 25000 is the hub of the mica industry this is where most of the export business is and processing plants are back. 25 years old is one of the towns exporters when we introduce ourselves as journalists he agrees to show us his warehouses and to talk about child labor. going for some material the material should always be ready here next to the

machine. around 50 people work in the company after the crystals are sorted ground down and filtered they are cleaned one last time. for you might. be valuable mica flakes are exported to europe for around $500.00 euros. the young entrepreneur tells us there's a good reason his mica isn't sourced from. mines that use child labor but from register the extraction is legal and controlled by both oranges. this is the law of this tiny that goes on my shelf and there is nothing in other sectors. stuff i legally

buy there. just as a reminder around 90 percent of the indian production is not from register but from john can't and be hard. our research also finds a database recording all mica exports from the port in kolkata. we see that several containers a week go to american germany. supplied by 2 export is based in kodama ram to modi and the cheesier and cab. to hosea in kodama whose source is mica from illegal mines himself mentioned these 2 export businesses. to export to. know why some

bikers are the exporters. to ram to modi to yes of course and to pitch easier cheesier yes i supply them to the responsible for the export. we manage to find the 2 suppliers on the outskirts of the town they are located next to one another. as soon as we arrive at the cheesier the workers in needed nice carry off only one man who seems to be in charge treats us. the. most minute. yes brenda it's very early but you posing as potential buyers we try to find out more about his suppliers and clients but the man is suspicious. to me. i am not able.

to shake your father yes yes yes we're not getting anywhere here. at random o.t. we're greeted by a foreman on the other end of the telephone his boss tells us that he won't meters . as we're leaving the premises respond to another factory building a few meters away time the boss is there and welcomes us with open arms we are still posing as potential buyers he says he has been working with ram to modi and pitchy easier for years supplying them with my car for export all that the fact they've been doing there for a long time there michael mostly goes to american germany. but. the man is happy to explain to us how the trade with foreign buyers works the firms have

export licenses. yes they've got an export license. they don't have any mining operations but they obtain the relevant documents but they have their goods from here it's not legal at all. you can get the necessary permits from russia star because there's mica there. exporters use licenses from there. since they're my car comes from illegal mines in jharkhand the export is have to get around the system to legalize their goods they buy the. necessary certificates in roger's dom which they used to export the illegally mind mica to europe. the man introduces us to his partner. thanks so.

much thanks and. he informs us that businesses can obtain a document certifying they are observing the ban on child labor. so if the buyer wants them certificate how do you do it. we can get one without business name for us it's no problem at all to get the papers. that's possible. yes we take care of everything but if you want one of these papers it will cost you a lot the administrative process is expensive. how much does it cost. between $2.02 rupees per kilo. so no matter where the miner comes from it's a simple matter to obtain papers to find that it hasn't been produced by child labor this is what pursuit of goods look like this copy comes from the indian office of an international certification company it certifies that the micro was produced in

compliance with laws to prevent child labor according to this indian export are such certificates are absolutely mandatory for international groups. and we have a saying here to people who don't own cals automatically get no milk in the same way you can ask why shouldn't you get a certificate even when you don't fulfill the requirements yourself that's the way the world works. of course large corporations like america conduct their own inspections but export is also have their tricks to get around this. american spector's come for example mr. he asked me to take him to the mines for a visit. to get. mines where children work but if it. yes children work there too but on the day of the inspection

there was a child unsightly but you know women and no children. so far the export is ram to modi and haven't commented on the allegations. we confront mac with the results of our research the company refuses an interview in writing they refer us to their corporate responsibility charter and explain we completely reject the use of any kind of child labor so they send we have introduced control mechanisms along the entire supply chain which we are continuously developing. should any concrete indication of irregularities arise we will of course investigate them and take appropriate measures. of a global organization responsible miter initiative is an n.g.o.s that campaigns against child labor in my car mines.

they have around 50 sponsors including mac l'oreal chanel and even. the french representative of the ngo agrees to meet us in her paris office. we show her the footage we filmed in the mines in india. the heart of it it's unbearable we need to act now you know this is why our organization was founded and why we want to eradicate child labor the 2022 funny family is aware that child labor still exists but doesn't want international companies to pull out of the region. is this if. if these companies decided to stop buying my kit from india the families would lose their only income overnight.

it takes a huge effort to stay there when we know all about the problem and still say. re staying. there where of the issue and ridge joining forces to solve it. to live down the systemic and. but the fact is mica traders and exporters are the biggest beneficiaries of illegal mining and it's hardly in their interests to change anything importers and producers rely on spot checks and indian certificates for jock hands people are the ones who suffer because they depend on the income from illegal mining. seen in that light the creation of new jobs here by 2022 seems like pie in the sky.

the global corona crisis you can find more information online d.w. dot com and on t.w. social media channels. a male. welcome to the 2nd season on the. back environment still about society and it's still about us put all the planets on the brink he spoke to several leading experts in the field. like i just did

a couple of ribs and spoke of. the. this is. the last chance for the public to. george for the 1st of its expected to be thousands of people. from houston texas also forced to betray them.