Sacrificing childhood for survival

By Joyce Mitengo & Ezekiel Mvuma :

Beneath the cliffs of Bunda Mountain— which is located off the road to Mitundu in Lilongwe—the continuous sounds of chiseling and hammering echo through the valleys. These are sounds of an activity that is actively claiming the future of countless children from the mountain’s surrounding communities.

Amidst the bare and dusty landscape of the mountain’s once evergreen and serene slopes, the sun beats down on the children, perpetuating in its intensity as young workers labour to extract stones from the mountain’s depths—their small hands and weary eyes a testament to the unforgiving nature of their work.

The air is thick with dust and the only pause comes from the brief moments when they stop to wipe sweat from their brows—or to take a hurried sip of water.

Theirs is a world of perilous labour, where childhood is a distant memory and the only reality is the endless crushing of stones and the relentless drudgery of their daily toil.

Pushed by poverty

“I had to drop out of school because my parents could not provide money for my tuition fees,” says 15-year-old Rafik Ngunga from Mponda Village, one of the communities around Bunda Mountain.

Barefoot and covered in dust while dragging a sack of stones down the mountain path, Ngunga’s story is the story of many other children in the area; children who are forced to abandon their education to work in quarries on the slopes of the mountain.

And his fate mirrors that of several other children who start their exhausting 12-hour work schedule as early as 6am every day.

“We normally go hungry; only drinking water in-between the work,” he says, seemingly stunted by the workload.

The young stone crushers mostly sell their quarry and stones to people who are constructing houses and other structures in the area.

Naturally, Ngunga says, the quantity of stones crushed determines the amount of money he will realise after selling the harvest of his toil.

“It takes almost a week to crush a 10-metric tonne heap of stones, which fetches around K150, 000,” he explains, adding that, oftentimes, their quarry is stolen at night and they get forced to start all over again.

Risking education and health

The loss of education is a significant blow to the young stone crushers, limiting their future prospects and perpetuating the cycle of poverty in the area.

Teachers such as Bizwick Banda of Kalimabwera Primary School in the area witnesses the tragedy firsthand.

According to Banda, the number of learners diminishes with each passing day as most of the children are forced to choose between their education and survival.

“They fall behind and chances of them returning to school shrink,” he says, adding that it is disheartening that as the learners drop out of school, they miss out on attaining the very same education that could lift them out of poverty.

It is even more worrying that the children are not only killing their prospects of getting educated; they are, in fact, also harming their health.

Diana Banda, a health surveillance assistant at Bunda Clinic, says when children work in quarries, they are exposed to dust, heat and repetitive physical strain, which inevitably leads to chronic respiratory conditions, muscle injuries and heat-related illnesses.

“It’s heartbreaking to see children aged as young as 10 or 15 coming to the clinic while struggling with respiratory problems due to prolonged dust exposure,” Banda notes.

She says the physical exhaustion compounds their mental distress, a burden no child should bear.

And beyond the personal toll on children and families around Bunda Mountain, the environmental cost of unchecked quarrying on the mountain is quite shocking. The thick greenery that once blanketed the mountain is giving way to barren rock faces and dusty trails.

Patrick George—an environmental sciences student at the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources— says continuous quarrying undermines the long-term sustainability of the mountain’s ecosystem.

“The damage isn’t limited to plants and animals. Degradation of the mountain is threatening the water cycle and increasing soil erosion, affecting local agriculture and food production that are the economic lifeline of nearby communities,” George explains.

He says addressing the crisis in quarry areas demands urgent action on several fronts, highlighting that increased government funding for education and healthcare is essential, alongside creating alternative jobs to lessen dependence on quarrying.

Cushioning vulnerable people

According to a 2022 report by the International Labour Organisation, strict enforcement of child labour laws is needed to protect vulnerable children who are forced into dangerous work in quarries while environmental regulations must also be upheld.

“Engaging local communities in sustainable development efforts and ensuring access to quality education are vital for long-term change and to break the cycle of poverty that often drives child labour,” reads the report.

The plight of the children like Ngunga crushing stones for quarry on Bunda Mountain is a stark reminder of the hidden cost of poverty. As the stones are crushed, so are the dreams and futures of these young members of the society.