A/HRC/18/30 27. The position followed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child when considering periodic reports from State parties is that, “any work carried out by children in conditions below those established by the United Nations Convention [on the Rights of the Child] or by ILO standards should be considered as economic exploitation” (report of the Secretary-General on status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, A/64/172, para. 9). 28. In 1993, the Committee on the Rights of the Child devoted its second day of annual discussion to the economic exploitation of children (see CRC/C/20, para. 186– 196). On this occasion, the indivisibility and interrelatedness of the rights of the child stipulated in the Convention on the Rights of the Child were highlighted, as was the fact that they are all inherent to the human dignity of the child. Therefore, a holistic approach should be taken when looking at the implementation of the right enshrined in article 32. 29. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has on many occasions considered the issue of children working in mines and quarries. For example, in 2009, it expressed its concern at the presence of child workers as young as 5 years working in dangerous conditions in the mining industry, particularly the Katanga region (CRC/C/COD/CO/2, para. 80). In the past year, the Committee has considered the issue of children working in mines in Ecuador, Guatemala, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Nigeria and Sierra Leone. Most recently, during the Committee’s consideration of Ukraine (CRC/C/UKR/CO/3-4, paras. 74 and 75), the Committee raised concern about children working in the informal and illegal economy of the coal-mining sector, where children work under difficult and hazardous conditions. 30. The Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights has also considered children working in mines and quarries in countries such as China (E/C.12/1/Add.107, para. 23) and Zambia (E/C.12/1/Add.106, para. 25). Most recently, it considered mining in Madagascar. The Committee recommended that the State party: reinforce the legal framework to combat child labour and adopt all the necessary legal and judicial measures to eradicate this phenomenon; support and reinforce the role of the family as an essential element for the protection of children and combat against child labour; and take all necessary measures to implement effectively all policies against child labour, including through awareness-raising campaigns for the public on protection of children, strengthen preventive measures, and prosecute and punish those who are responsible (see E/C.12/MDG/CO/2). V. Root causes, manifestations and aggravating factors that lead to child slavery in the mining and quarrying sector 31. The root causes, manifestations and aggravating factors of child slavery in the mining and quarrying sector sometimes occur individually (like in the case of forced labour and debt bondage), or when coupled with, for instance, poverty and the informality and illegality of the sector, or when combined together. This section describes each of these factors and how they cause and keep a child in contemporary forms of slavery, whereby the child is treated merely as a commodity and experiences coercion, fear, restriction of movement and complete dependence on the employer. A. Poverty 32. Poverty is one of the main reasons for children working in mines and quarries sector. In such cases, parents are unable to provide for their basic needs and require 8