Nearly a decade after the issue of child labor in mica mining was exposed, the cosmetics industry has made slow and tricky progress in cleaning up its supply chain for gleaming minerals

Last modified at 09.27 EDT, Thursday, October 15, 2020

In the hilly forest in the rural Jharkhand state of India, children as young as 10 are hammering gravel on the mountainside. Others, mainly young girls, transported a basket of stones to the top of the mine to sort the contents. Their job is to separate the sparkling fragments from the rock fragments.

These fragments are mica, a mineral that adds luster to beauty products such as blushes, eye shadows, lipsticks and foundations, as well as paints used in the automotive and construction industries. Some of the world's largest cosmetics companies, including L'Oreal and Estee Lauder, as well as suppliers such as Merck, source mica from India, which is one of the world's largest mica producers.

However, after cosmetics suppliers were warned of their existence for more than a decade, child labor is still widespread in mica mining in Jharkhand and Bihar, accounting for about 25% of world production. According to a recent report by the non-governmental organizations Terre des Hommes and SOMO, it is estimated that as many as 20,000 children work in mines, and about 90% of them are illegal.

Absolute poverty (according to 2013 data, 36.9% of the population in Jharkhand and 33.7% of the population in Bihar live below the poverty line) make children particularly vulnerable to child labor because families rely on them to supplement family income.

Even the natural cosmetics company Lush, which is proud of its ethical reputation, has been working hard to clean up its mica supply chain.

After the Guardian published an article on child labor, the company promised to remove all traces of natural mica from its products. Two years later, the company has been unable to eradicate this mineral from its supply chain.

"We don't know how difficult this will be," said Stephanie Boyd, the company's public relations manager. "As a direct component, it is easy to identify, but unfortunately, mica is still part of the complex material mixture used to make color pigments and gloss."

Boyd said that since 2014, the company has not intentionally purchased any materials containing natural mica.

For Aidan McQuaide, the head of the non-governmental organization Anti-Slavery International, boycott is usually not the best way because “the livelihoods of many poor people may be threatened”. But he acknowledged that many business leaders have found that the task of realizing the ideals of decent work in the Indian mining industry is “impossible” given the enormous challenges.

Although Lush stated that it has no "purchasing power or local knowledge" to stay and make a difference, other companies choose to continue to source from the region and try to solve the problem on the ground.

For some companies such as Estee Lauder, L'Oreal and Yves Rocher, this involves focusing on "child-friendly villages." The model was established in 2010 as a joint initiative between the National Resource Management Committee (NRSC) and the Indian NGO Bachpan Bachao Andolan (BBA), a non-profit organization that promotes responsible procurement. Its members include Many of the largest cosmetic companies.

The plan aims to improve education infrastructure and living conditions through cooperation with local communities and governments, so that children in 500 villages in the region can enter schools instead of mining. Daljeet Singh, BBA's project director, said that the idea is to eventually transfer responsibility to the community and government.

Anna Klein, vice president of corporate affairs at Estee Lauder, said, “Although the plan has not yet ended child labor in mica mines, it demonstrates that responsible business practices and continued cooperation can create better practices for children.”

The BBA told the Guardian that 100 of the 500 villages have been converted to child-friendly villages so far, which has led to 3,650 children enrolling, building several new schools, and improving the basic infrastructure of existing schools, such as Clean drinking water, lunch and toilets.

The NRSC Summit was held behind closed doors in February, bringing together cosmetics companies and suppliers, NGOs, governments, and members of the mica community to discuss responsible sourcing. Catherine Peyreaud, executive director of the NRSC, stated that one of the results was that participants pledged to extend the child-friendly village model to the remaining 400 villages.

BBA National Secretary Buwan Ribhu said: “This summit is a big step towards solving the challenges in the region, improving the living conditions of all 400 villages, and getting 50,000 children in these villages to go to school.” The organization estimates that the remaining 400 villages will cost. For 6 million U.S. dollars (4.58 million pounds), although it did not disclose how much the company will contribute to this.

Stéphanie Carson-Parker, Head of External Communications at L'Oréal, stated that the summit was "an important step towards a collective approach to sustainable mica sourcing".

However, others have found that this incident shows that the industry has stalled on the issue of child labor. "The lack of clear goals, clear timetables, and appropriate control mechanisms are cause for concern," said Rob Harrison, editor of Ethical Consumer Magazine. "In 10 years, the phenomenon of child labor has not been eliminated. It took a year to prepare for the summit alone." In addition, not everyone believes that such programs are capable of solving problems. Rishi Sher Singh, a participant at the summit and director of ASRD, a sustainable business consulting company, said that although basic education is essential, "if children do not learn how to earn a living in other ways, they will return to the mining industry after school."

Another goal of the summit is traceability. Companies including L'Oréal and Merck, which own brands such as Body Shop and Maybelline, have pledged to source only from legal and fenced mines, thereby avoiding the use of the informal sector where child labor is most common.

A Merck spokesperson, Neetha Mahadevan, stated that the company sourced from "six dedicated mines and "five of which were exclusively supplied to Merck." The Terre des Hommes report pointed out some of the government processes for mica procurement companies. Difficult. 2015 data from the Bureau of Mines of India listed that there are no legal mines in Jharkhand (pdf), Merck owns three mines there, but Merck has mining lease documents and the recent mining inspection report from the Bureau of Mines of India.

The two companies also audit their suppliers. Since 2012, Merck has been using environmental resource management to conduct annual audits of mines and processing plants, and stated that it has severed its relationship with the two suppliers based on the results of these audits.

For Singh, the situation is so complicated that despite the traceability plan, "it is hard to say that there is no child labor in mica in this area."

Many activists believe that the solution to the problem of child labor must be broader than business. Aysel Sabahoglu, child rights officer at Terre des Hommes, said: “Social development initiatives such as child-friendly villages can only have a positive impact if they complement the government’s efforts at the national and local levels.” She added that although there is legislation to protect children, “ There is still no or very little enforcement at the local level...due to corruption, lack of capacity and unregistered children."

McQuaide said that the answer to the problem of child labor in mica mining is not company boycotts, audits or social projects, whatever the significance, but efforts to push stubborn governments to take action. He said that as long as the company “remains silent” about the government’s inaction on human rights violations, efforts to combat child labor can only be limited.