people who take on the challenges of the world with their unique ideas. is the person with the entrepreneurial mind to look at those 2 problems and make them one solution for a new season of sounders valley. starts june 13th 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 can't yet they are not run by big corporations all of the miners work for themselves. between 10200 rupees depending on the

prize. i have to fill the whole basket full like this one here too on the equivalent of one euro $0.25 we use women work 8 hours a day to the blazing sun what else can i do. i'd rather work on the life than die of starvation that now. the hills are busy 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 roma to really is used in a multitude of everyday products. in automotive paints for example. or as an insulating material for electronic components. mostly though it is used in the cosmetics industry. crushed into a powder found in. almost every time i go cosmetics. my car here michael

ware. everywhere but who pays the price for our glittery cosmetics one. down in the valley children are gathering michael aged between 6 and 91. lone wolf. road at. the reserve after. up but even the. most clear from the. upload of their genitals the the what the. they were of the. they were just written in that i'm the author.

of some will. also. to find out more about the importance of my career in the beauty industry we had to because medical trained 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. miter is an essential ingredient in make up sanctions musk are a long shot lipstick and foundation. so what is mica make i am i mike it is a shimmery material which puts the glitter in to powder isn't creates its half what it. effect it produces the shimmery glowing effect on the skin.

it's in foundation in lipstick my cousin everything. it's a cane gradient 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 their role materials are sauced. that's why this. has. 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. it is like that

and they give you 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 but does this really work. micah can be found all over the world. the u.s. brazil canada and south korea are among the largest countries to extract it. however china and india are way ahead 30 percent of all miter imported into europe comes from india. officially india and mica production comes from brad just in practice almost 90 percent of the my german mined in india is from the stakes of jharkhand and behind my can mining and extraction are illegal there.

in the ninety's the state to command these miles of wild fowl is a nature reserve in order to protect them the old guard is back and all my gear 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 the. who work here even in areas that are very difficult to access. some of the mica miners used dynamite to get into the mountainside. others dig on the surface using rudimentary tools we trying to establish contact with them we want to understand how they have been mining might or illegally for over 40 years and in spite of the band. 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. 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. just. average daily wages between 3 euros 80 and 5 euros he hasn't always been a miter 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 masts the family's livelihood used to be farming but drought and climate change have now made most of the land barren. i am a person this is my land here all of this. can you still farm on this land larry. 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 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 minute well catch our attention.

to. the house don't worry we're not police ok no problem. what is your name right around saying how do you manage to work down there. different. 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. canon 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 year owes $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. he is at the hour a new minute. 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. the 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 eat. an eater is illiterate like most of the villagers in jock out. i don't know how old my parents don't remember. anything or 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 and then. 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 with 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. it was the. it's all going to. show it to me right away or cross. if this is my daily ordeal working in the heat i can deal with the hunger that my children can't i won't let them starve i have to work because i don't have any land

to farm. for the 3 grueling hours anita and her children have collected enough mica to feed themselves for a day. many highly profitable businesses rely on these poor people slogging away. at the end of each day the valley villagers take what they've gathered to collection points where the mica is sold by weight. put it down here small traders are at the bottom of the supply chain they supply my cats are local wholesalers. the local directors to the wholesalers who buy their goods.

there on 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. to the 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. i love it i don't know who. would make. this so children don't work there no. more you 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 mack 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. subsidiaries khana rona and tim are on supplying to major brands such as l'oreal chanel and. the others you can 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 says comprehensive annual or did see 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 had 4 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 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. 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 so lost from mines that use child labor. extraction is legal and controlled by. all forages. this is a lot of what i just told you that those on my shelf and their lives in other sectors. legally searched by their own. just as

a reminder around 90 percent of the indian production is not from rochester but from john can't and behind. our research also finds a database recording all micah exports from the port in kolkata. we see that several containers a week go to machen germany. supplied by 2 export is based in kodama ram do modi and the cheesier and cows. the host sailor in kodama whose source is mica from illegal mines himself mentioned these 2 export businesses. to export to. know why some bikers of the exporters. are random ot to yes of course and to pitch easy

after 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 need if we scurry off only one man who seems to be in charge greets us. the. most native best friend of his or in a bucket posing as potential buyers we try to. find out more about his suppliers and clients what the man is suspicious of really. any business. but. your father that. 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 asked 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 their micro mostly goes to american germany. and. 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 to in

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 there michael comes from illegal mines in jharkhand the export is have to get around the system to legalize their goods play by the necessary certificates in ragin stamp which they used to export the illegally mind might to europe. the. man introduces us to his partner. thanks rhonda as banks and. he informs us that businesses can obtain a document certifying they are observing the ban on child labor.

so if the buyer wants from certificate how do you do it thank you 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 micro comes from it's a simple matter to obtain papers certifying 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. certifies that the micro was produced in compliance with laws to prevent child labor according to this indian export are some certificates are absolutely mandatory for international groups like

now. 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 inspection of our tax porters 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 with everything. that we are 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 but cheesier 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. and the 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 eva share.

the french representative of the energy agrees to meet us in her paris office. we showed her the footage we filmed in the mines in india. to. get. something out of it it's unbearable we need to act now you know this is why our organization was founded and why does 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 since it is this is a day to day if these companies decided to stop buying mica from india the families would lose they only income overnight. it takes a huge effort to stay there when we know all about the problem and still say.

we staying there where where of the issue and red joining forces to solve it. but the fact is michael traders and export heirs 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 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.

go india. never before have there been so many leaders in. they benefit not only from a clone of virus like tom also a clue should. how can that be. we need to follow just say. 30 minutes w. .

this is d w news coming to life from a final farewell a call for justice for george floyd. i am. playing. hundreds of mourners package houston church for the funeral of the man who died in police custody in minneapolis 2 weeks ago floyd step.