Editor’s Note
This article examines the human cost of informal mining, where economic necessity forces communities into perilous conditions. It is part of our ongoing coverage of resource extraction and global labor practices.
Ade clearly remembers the morning his brother John died. He explains how the siblings grew up together in the shadow of the North Mara mine, going to prospect for gold in waste rock, a common activity for the community. Waste rock is usually dumped by mine companies because they lack economically interesting amounts of mineral. For artisanal miners and their families, a small amount of gold makes the difference between buying school shoes or not.
That morning, like many others, started with the brothers and a small group of people going to search for gold after enjoying breakfast at a local café. They went to an area where the mine regularly allowed artisanal miners to search for rocks. Police sometimes allowed people, who were technically trespassing, to access mine waste rock.
The families of John and Peter – pseudonyms for two young Tanzanian artisanal miners killed while prospecting for gold at the North Mara Gold Mine – are pinning their hopes for justice and redress on the British legal system. It’s been almost five years since the two men were killed in separate incidents of alleged police violence at a mine supplying gold to a refinery that is part of the Switzerland-based MKS PAMP SA group.
About a million people are involved in artisanal and small-scale gold mining in Tanzania, one of the main gold producers in Africa.
The High Court in London is finally taking on their lawsuit against the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA), alleging that it wrongfully certified gold from a Tanzanian mine as being free from serious human rights abuses. The LBMA oversees the world’s largest gold market and upholds responsible sourcing standards.
Swiss refineries rely on the LBMA stamp of approval for the international trading of gold and silver bars. The LBMA Good Delivery system includes measures to ensure the highest quality of precious metals bars enter the market as well as measures to combat money laundering, climate change and human rights abuses.
British law firm Leigh Day filed the case in December 2022 on behalf of the families of the two artisanal miners killed in 2019 at the North Mara Gold Mine. The mine is majority-owned by Canadian multinational Barrick Gold Corporation, one of the world’s largest gold mining companies. Over the years, significant amounts of gold from that mine have been refined by Swiss refinery MKS PAMP and its India subsidiary MMTC-PAMP.
The LBMA initially objected to the case being heard in the UK and pushed for it to be heard in Tanzania instead. But on June 14 the association conceded the initial jurisdictional dispute, allowing for the case to be heard in Britain. In Tanzania, the families of artisanal miners would not be able to afford to engage lawyers, whereas in the UK a legal firm can take them on a no-win, no-fee basis, explains Leigh Day. This modality does not exist in Tanzania.
Anneke Van Woudenberg, a prominent human rights advocate and director of the NGO RAID, says such jurisdictional disputes are a common stalling tactic by multinationals. She says the UK trial for the LBMA will have consequences well beyond the gold industry.
Unlike Switzerland, the UK is a jurisdiction where the powerless can hold companies accountable for human rights and environmental damage. Nigerians, for example, have been able to bring a lawsuit against oil giant Shell in the UK over the environmental damage done by oil spills in the Niger Delta. Swiss voters, however, rejected a Responsible Business Initiative that would have made such actions possible.