A/HRC/18/30 71. The overall majority of children who work in artisanal mining and quarrying are boys. However, the number of boys and girls working in mines varies from country to country. In countries like Philippines and the United Republic of Tanzania, the majority of children working in the mines are boys.25 Furthermore, in countries like the Plurinational State of Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru, as a result of cultural beliefs, girls are normally not allowed to enter mines or work outside the mines processing the ore and sifting the mineral from the slag (see E/C.12/MDG/CO/2). However, in Mongolia, the majority of children who work under the age of 13 are girls.26 72. In addition to working in artisanal mining and quarrying, girls also perform domestic household tasks which involve cooking, taking care of siblings, cleaning supplying tools and food to other miners, carrying water and washing clothes. While performing these additional duties, girls are exposed to chemically contaminated water, food and soil. Women and girls are also found around the mines selling food, water and tools. 73. Girls, especially unaccompanied girls, working in and around the mines and quarries are vulnerable to rape and sexual exploitation. Sexual exploitation can start from the age of 9 but many of the girls involved are aged between 13 and 17 years.27 In some mining communities like those in Burkina Faso and Niger, it is believed that male child miners will have greater luck in the mining pits if they have sexual intercourse with a virgin or have unprotected sexual intercourse and do not wash before going underground (see E/C.12/MDG/CO/2). Child prostitution also occurs in the mining communities. For example, in Ghana, girls as young as 12 living in gold-mining communities are found in prostitution (ibid.). A United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) study on sexual exploitation of children around mines and quarries found four main types of exploitation: prostitution on a regular basis, occasional prostitution, companionship or temporary unions, and forced prostitution.28 74. Consequently, mining and quarrying communities often have a high rate of STIs (such as HIV and AIDS), teenage pregnancies and single-parent households. Chemical contamination from artisanal mining can be a risk to an unborn child or breastfeeding children. 75. The present chapter shows how if one principal crime goes unpunished, it makes way for –sometimes more complex – subsequent secondary crimes which are dependent on the principal crime. In this case, the fact that child slavery in mines and quarries goes unpunished has led to a series of other human rights violations, such as rape and sexual exploitation. 76. To conclude, the nature and effects of child slavery in this sector on the health and education of children, as well as the violations of their rights to play and have 25 26 27 28 16 Mwami, J.A. et al., “Tanzania Children Labour in Mining: A Rapid Assessment” (Geneva, ILO, 2002) pp. viii and 27; and ILO-IPEC ASIADEV, “In search for the pot of gold: A case study of the experiences of the ILO-IPEC Program on the Elimination of Child Labour in Small Mining Communities in the Province of Camarines Norte, Philippines” (2003). See ILO-IPEC, “The informal gold mining sub-sector in Mongolia: A comprehensive sector based project to prevent and eliminate child labour and improve the situation of informal gold miners” (2004). “UNICEF Democratic Republic of the Congo – Good Practice: Fighting the Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents in Mines and Quarries In Katanga, Kasai Occidental and Kasai Oriental, DRC” for the Third World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents, 2008. “Children’s Work and Independent Child Migration: a critical review”.