i'm going crazy thing in all the time. how to handle lives in times of the koran a pandemic d.w. reporter keep your drugs just like everyone else and she's looking for answers and thankfully with the help of any expect. thank you this is not life as we know it. in this together our new website or as. we are in john kept northern india it's one of the poorest regions in the country deep within these rocky crevices around 20 men and women all 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. and between 10200 rupees depending on the prize. i have to start a whole basketful like this one here 2 on the equivalent of one euro $0.25 these women work 8 hours a day of the blazing sun what else can i do. i'd rather work on the my life than die of starvation that now. the hills of this desert like landscape on full of the mineral mind. you have to do is bend down and pick it up in early strips unknown to most people the roman terry lane is used in a multitude of everyday products. in automotive paints for example. or as an insulating material for electronic. components. mostly it is used in the cosmetics industry

when russia into a powder is found in almost every time of cosmetics. my dear young michael ware. everywhere but who pays the price for our glittery cosmetics. one. down in the valley children are gathering my girls aged between 6 and 9 when. absolute. good at her. love. but it is. clear from the. upload that they genitals the with.

of the. they were just like that in and around the author. of. some. of. the is. to find out more about the importance of mica in the beauty industry we had to because medical training fat and balin there are no standards for the likes of show now do your l'oreal here the big brands don't make their own products they are outsourced to retaliate manufacturers. mind to is an essential ingredient in make up such as mr carro. lipstick and foundation. so what is mica me cry. am i my kid is

a shimmery material which puts the glitter into powders and creams games that's what you have that effect it produces the shimmery glowing effect on the skin. it's an foundation in lipstick my cousin everything. it's a cane gradient yes and cosmetics especially in the decorative department i think it's one of the most important. manufacturers now plenty about the formulas of their products. but do they know where they're wrong materials are so lost. that swiss yet you just finally as we'd need to scrutinize the documents every time. 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. and they give every roll material has its own documentation 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 the downs there is really work. mica can be found all over the world. you ass 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 india and my current production comes from raw just in practice almost 90 percent of the mike. mind

india is from the stakes of jharkhand and bihar. mining and extraction are illegal back. in the ninety's the state declared these miles of wild fowl is a nature reserve in order to protect them it is backed by mining. however our 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 mica 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. by neal 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 and we can make about 302400 rupees so we can buy rice and feed ourselves. 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. but. average daily wage is between 3 euros 80 and 5 euros. he hasn't always been

a micro gatherer just 2 years ago he was working as a farmer 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 family's livelihood used to be farming but drought and climate change have now made most of the land barren. i am just this is my land here all of this. can you still farm on this land where if there's no rain the nothing can grow it's too dry fallible enough of the. extraction of mica has become an indispensable source of income from all the 90 percent of john cans population. the 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 my narrow well catch our attention. over i have. don't worry we're not police ok no problem. what is your name. saying how do you manage to work down there. because. 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

a 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. for. 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. in this at the way new my ears. 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 they even tried to scare us a few times but how are we going to feed ourselves if we don't come here. but 2 miners live in 23 a town with a population of around 4000 people surrounded by michael reserves michael 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. feel like the 1st sit down and meet. anita is illiterate like most of the villagers and jock out. i don't know how old my parents don't remember. anything nor can you tell us about your husband. michael. my husband left to work in the mines he went deep underground and was buried in a landslide. did others die with it 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 all going to. show it to me right away or i'll get cross.

this is my daily ordeal working in the heat i can deal with my children. i won't let them starve i have to work because i don't have any land to farm. off for 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 might answer 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. where does the mica come from it comes from the minds. of their 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 it i don't know. that. the so children don't work that no. exporter michael yourself. you know 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 mica 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 long. 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. sans comprehensive annual audit seeing clued the control of relevant documentation workers ages working hours and wages as well as compliance with environmental safety and health standards by means aborted we strictly monitored the compliant behavior of our partners but does it really work we had for kodama in the north of john this town with a population of 25000 is the heart of the mica industry this is where most of the export business is and processing plants are. 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. this is. for you mike. these 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. extraction. legal and controlled by both artists. this is a lot of what i just thought that those films. and their lives in other sectors.

tell. legally that by their own. 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 court in kolkata. we see that several containers a week go to machen germany. supplied by 2 export is based in kodama ram to modi and the cheesier and cab. the wholesale in kodama whose source is mica from the legal minds himself mention these 2 export businesses. you export to.

know are some bikers of 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 greets us. must make new friends. in l.a. but posing. as potential buyers we try to find out more about his suppliers and clients but the man is suspicious. really.

not able. any business. but. your father hears us we're not getting anywhere here. to modi 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 the time but they've been doing that for a long time they're micro 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 have taken the relevant documents but they look at their goods from here it's not legal at all . you can get the necessary permits from roger starr 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 ragin stamp which they're used to export the ill . remind micah to europe. the man introduces us to his partner. thanks so much

as banks and. tim films says 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 mine comes from it's a simple matter to obtain papers to find that it hasn't been produced by child labor this is what the certificates 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 or such so typical it's are absolutely mandatory for international groups. and we have a saying here to people who don't own kells 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. asked me to take him to the mines for a visit. to get. mines where children work but. yes children work there too but on the day of the inspection

there was a child inside me but no women and no children and. so far they export as ram to modi and pitchy 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 to this end 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 the global organization responsible miter initiative is an engine that campaigns against child labor in micah mines.

they have around 50 sponsors including mac l'oreal chanel and eva shea. the french representative of the energy agrees to meet us in her paris office. we show her the footage we filmed in the mines in india. it's something out 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 by 2022 funny families or where the child labor still exists but doesn't want international companies to pull out of the region so this isn't a is this is a dieted if these companies decided to stop buying michael 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. we're staying there where where of the issue and red joining forces to solve it. to have done. but the fact is michael traders and exporters of 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 but jock hands people are the ones who suffer because they depend on the income from illegal mining. seen in bad light the creation of new jobs here by 2022 seems like pie in the sky.

fire sale of such a title after a win over labor. the last place. to go. up today don't miss our. program on line w. dot com hard. place.

blame. this is deja vu news live from berlin thousands pay their last respects to george florida head of his hometown. his death in police custody sparked a global protest against racism to call to defund the police and risk losing political support. also coming up black people in germany welcomed the recent outpouring of support for racial justice but they say there is still much to be

done here to tackle racism and discrimination. law says hong kong marks one year of pro-democracy protests activists won the were.