Child Labour in Photos: Electronic Waste

Shadow’s gathering across the fringe; Men eat raw beef along the greasy shores untroubled. Hands folded, Tales of sickness ignored; Last ones to be born; first ones to wane. Dreams disappear into toxic bodies; Clip-clop on cobblestones, dark horses march children into hell’s gate unfinished poem, muntaka chasant This is a story of an ongoing […]

May 20, 2020

Muntaka Chasant

May 20, 2020

14 Min read time

Child labour image: 14-year-old Bright Ankrah (left) is about to smash an old CRT TV against a rock to retrieve the shadow mask and other iron materials inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Osei (right), 15, is shouting at Bright: "be careful I'm here! be careful!!" Roughly around 31.5 million children in Africa are in hazardous child labour, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Shadow’s gathering across the fringe; Men eat raw beef along the greasy shores untroubled. Hands folded, Tales of sickness ignored; Last ones to be born; first ones to wane. Dreams disappear into toxic bodies; Clip-clop on cobblestones, dark horses march children into hell’s gate
unfinished poem, muntaka chasant

This is a story of an ongoing tragedy involving a generation of young people on the margins of Accra, and like a pebble dropped into water, the consequences are likely to ripple outwards.

Visual images have shaped public and foreign policy for centuries — creating an unrivaled role in transforming human societies in ways we cannot even imagine.

Photography’s impact on society and culture is ubiquitous.

Lewis Hine’s work¹ inspired legislation that cut down the number of children engaged in child labour in the United States at the dawn of the 20th century.

The Red Cross conducted one of its biggest relief operations since World War II in 1992 after James Natchway’s Famine in Somalia ² published.

Sam Nzima’s Soweto Uprising³ showed how the apartheid regime killed its citizens, forcing a strong international front against the then South Africa’s racist system.

Child labour image: Emmanuel Osei Yaw, 15 years old, is about to smash an old CRT TV against a rock to recover the shadow mask and other iron materials inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. 14-year-old Bright Ankrah (in lime green t-shirt) is moving an old cathode-ray tube (CRT) TV cabinet housing. Around 73 million children between 5 and 17 years are in hazardous child labour worldwide. More than 62% of all children in hazardous child labour are boys, the ILO global estimates show. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

I have been documenting hazardous child labour at Agbogbloshie for some time now. My hope is that this body of work will bring this situation to the forefront.

Hopefully, these children get some help before it is all too late.

See the links below for details and more photographs.

Child Labour: Akufo-Addo is an 8-year-old urban poor and engaged in hazardous child labour at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Children working in hazardous environments at Agbogbloshie are exposed to heavy metals such as arsenic, cadmium, lead, chromium, and mercury. Roughly around 19 million children worldwide below the age of 12 years are in hazardous child labour, according to the ILO. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Child Labour in Ghana: Meet 8-Year-Old ‘Akufo-Addo’

This 8-year-old nicknamed after Ghana’s president is engaged in hazardous child labour on the margins of Accra, Ghana. See how he navigates the underside of Agbogbloshie.

Children of Agbogbloshie: Malik, Adama and Twum

Urban Outcasts: Children of Agbogbloshie

See hazardous child labour at Agbogbloshie and a missing child found through this article.

Hazardous Child Labour Photos

Child labour: Emmanuel Osei, 15 years old, threw an old CRT TV in the air, hoping for it to land on a nearby rock. If this technique works, both the panel and the lead-filled funnel glass will instantly shatter into pieces, revealing the shadow mask and other materials. The reclaimed precious metals are weighed and sold — for around $0.15 per kilo in May 2020. Flying glasses during this process frequently cut Osei and the other children engaged in this hazardous work. They are also exposed to toxic substances such as lead and cadmium. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Hazardous child labour at Agbogbloshie: A young person (15 years old) had just smashed an old CRT TV against a rock with splinters of glass flying around, to reclaim the iron materials inside. Not only does the glass cut the children engaged in this hazardous work, but they are also exposed to heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, and barium. About 21% of children in Ghana are in child labour, with around 14% engaged in hazardous work. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Informal disposal and recycling of end-of-life electronics (e-waste ) may be poisoning a generation of young people living on the margins of Accra, Ghana’s capital city.

Emmanuel Osei Yaw, 15 years old, Mustafa Zuberu, 13, Bright Ankrah, 14, are urban poor children engaged in hazardous work on the fringes of Agbogbloshie.

The photographs on this page are only a small window on their lives.

Hazardous child labour in Africa: Left to right: Ankrah, 14 years, Osei, 15 years, and Mustafa, 13 years, are dismantling old CRT TVs with their bare hands and stones to recover the iron metals inside. This exposed them to heavy metals such as lead and cadmium. Approximately 31.5 million children in Africa are in child labour, the ILO statistics show. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Child labour in Africa: Osei (right), 15 years old, is about to smash an old CRT TV against a rock to recover the iron materials inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Fourteen-year-old Ankrah in a lime green t-shirt with “I can do it!” on the front is waiting for his turn. More than 70 million children in Africa are estimated to be in child labour. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

For food, clothes, and the expectation to contribute to their household economy, Osei and the other children use their bare hands to cannibalize from discarded e-waste and sift through the soil using fingers — to retrieve small pieces of metals — in an area known for its heavy metals pollution.

They are exposed to toxic materials such as lead, mercury, cadmium, and barium.

Child labour in Ghana: Mustafa, 13 years old, is an urban poor engaged in hazardous child labour on the fringes of Abgbogbloshie, Ghana. He’s about to smash an old computer monitor against a rock to recover the shadow mask (iron-nickel alloy material) inside. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

A study in 2013 found lead levels as high as 18,125 parts per million (ppm) in one of the soil samples collected from around Agbogbloshie.⁴ US EPA’s recommended safe limits for lead in bare soil in children’s play areas is 400 (parts per million) ppm and 1200 ppm for non-play areas.⁵

The Basel Action Network and the International Pollutants Elimination Network also found the highest levels of brominated and chlorinated dioxins ever measured in free-range chicken eggs in Agbogbloshie in a 2019 study⁶, fearing this may be contaminating Ghana’s food chain.

Child labour in Africa: 13 years old Mustafa attempts to dismantle an old CRT computer monitor to recover the iron materials inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. According to the International Labour Organization’s 2016 Global Estimates of Child Labour, one-fifth of all African children are engaged in child labour, worse than in any other region. © Muntaka Chasant

The children engaged in hazardous child labour on this page are part of thousands of people who toil in the toxic environment at Agbogbloshie every day trying to salvage precious metals from the waste stream.

Kristen Grant and other researchers in a 2013 study published in The Lancet Global Health⁷ examined — 23 epidemiological studies — the association between exposure to e-waste and health outcomes from 1965 to 2012 in southeast China. They found credible outcomes associated with exposure to e-waste including reduced lung function, changes in cellular expression and function, stillbirths, miscarriage, and evidence of greater DNA damage compared to a control group.

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What is Going on in The Photographs?

Child labour: Emannuel Osei Yaw, 15 years old, is about to smash an old CRT TV against a rock to recover the iron-nickel materials inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Osei and the other children engaged in hazardous work at Agbogbloshie are frequently cut by a flying funnel and panel glass from old CRT TVs. They are also exposed to heavy metals such as lead and cadmium. Approximately 62% of all children in hazardous child labour worldwide are boys, according to ILO estimates. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

There’s no doubt that some e-waste is still making its way into Ghana, with some ending up at a place such as Agbogbloshie. But a significant chunk of the e-waste that goes into Agbogbloshie is locally generated.

For me, where the e-waste is generated and where and how it is recycled is absolutely important. Not so much for where it was made. We can make the same argument for cars, leather shoes, and toothbrushes.

The Basel Convention allows for repair and reuse. A sizable number of the e-waste that makes their way into Ghana are repaired and reused. Not all Ghanaian households — with roughly around $2200 GDP per capita — can afford brand new LG LED TVs.

For instance, some of the end-of-life cathode-ray tube (CRT) TVs and computer monitors on this page had been in Ghana for decades. They had been used by local households and businesses and had added value to the local economy before being cannibalized for parts at Agbogbloshie.

Itinerant collectors pay a small fee for them from households and repair shops throughout Ghana. The collectors sell their goods to scrap dealers inside the Agbogbloshie scrapyard and other places.

For the old CRT TVs, the interior parts are “urban mined” for valuable components such as circuit boards and wiring.

The lead-filled CRT funnel glasses part are then discarded on a nearby e-waste dump or left around for the children to pick up. These glasses are a waste for the scrap dealers. But for the urban poor children around Agbogbloshie, the iron materials inside are a major source of instant cash.

These once symbols of high-quality engineering are smashed against stones and repeatedly hit with rocks for the shadow mask, aperture grille (Sony Trinitron), and other precious metals inside.

Electronic waste: Osei, 15 years old, is about to use his bare hands and stones to break apart old CRT TVs for the iron materials (shadow mask and other metals) inside. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

CRTs from old TVs and computer screens contain high levels of toxic materials such as lead¹, barium, and cadmium (in the phosphors)² ³, and are known to pose risks to human health and the environment.

CRT funnel glass contains around 22% of lead by weight⁴ ⁵. Their recycling is heavily regulated in many countries, including the US⁶, where several States prohibit their disposal in municipal waste landfills.⁷

How Children at Agbogbloshie Reclaim Iron Materials From Old CRT TVs

Worst Forms of child labour: 15-year-old Osei is about to smash an old CRT TV against a stone and other CRTs to recover iron materials at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. The metals are sold for around $0.15 per kilo as of May 2020. This worst form of child labour exposes Osei to lead and other toxic substances, including cadmium and barium. The Lead in CRT funnel glass is known to pose risks to human health and the environment. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

The photographs below show in series how smashing the CRT TVs against a rock could instantly reveal the iron materials inside.

Hazardous child labour and e-waste: Osei, 15 years old, is about to smash an old CRT TV against a rock to recover the shadow mask and other iron materials inside. CRT glass contains high levels of lead and other toxic substances. An estimated 73 million children worldwide between 5 and 17 years are in hazardous child labour. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Child labour and electronic waste: Agbogbloshie, Ghana — Osei, 15 years old, is smashing an old CRT TV against a rock to reclaim the shadow mask and other iron materials inside. Many children are involved in the informal recycling of e-waste at Agbogbloshie. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Hazardous child labour and e-waste: 15-year-old Emmanuel Osei had just smashed an old CRT TV against a rock to recover the iron materials inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Children working in a toxic environment: Osei, 15 years, and Mustafa, 13 years, are using stones to break apart old television sets to reclaim the iron materials inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Let’s zoom in to see what happened at the moment of impact.

E-waste recycling at Agbogbloshie: An old CRT TV smashed against a stone to separate the panel and funnel glass from the iron materials inside. Primitive e-waste recycling techniques at Agbogblosie contaminates the soil, air, and groundwater, exposing Accra residents to serious health risks. Agbogbloshie is the largest open food market in Accra. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

They hit the panel glass with stones directly if smashing the CRT TV against a rock fails.

Child labour in Africa: A 15 years old boy at Agbogbloshie, Ghana, is using a stone to break apart an old CRT TV to recover the iron materials inside. Iron scrap sold for around $0.15 per kilo at Agbogbloshie in May 2020. About 31.5 million children in Africa are in hazardous child labour, according to ILO global estimates. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Then use different techniques to remove the rest of the glass.

E-waste recycling: Osei, 15 years old, shakes off panel glass from an old CRT TV part at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Old television sets are smashed against stones sometimes to separate the glasses from the iron metal components inside. They are then sold for around $0.15 per kilo (in May 2020) at Agbogbloshie. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

When a glass appears too tough, an experienced person steps in to help.

Child poverty in Ghana: 11-year-old Ibrahim is using a stone to break apart an old CRT TV to reclaim the precious metals inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Nearly 2 million children in Ghana aged 5 - 17 years are in child labour. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant — Child poverty in Ghana: 11-year-old Ibrahim is using a stone to break apart an old CRT TV to reclaim the precious metals inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Nearly 2 million children in Ghana aged 5 – 17 years are in child labour. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Hazardous child labour: Osei, 15 years old, and Ibrahim, 11 years, are using stones to break apart an old CRT TV to reclaim the iron materials inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Around 14% of children in Ghana aged 5 - 17 years are engaged in hazardous work. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant — Hazardous child labour: Osei, 15 years old, and Ibrahim, 11 years, are using stones to break apart an old CRT TV to reclaim the iron materials inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Around 14% of children in Ghana aged 5 – 17 years are engaged in hazardous work. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Child labour: Osei, 15 years old, had just helped Ibrahim, 11 years, to recover a shadow mask from an old CRT TV at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Iron scrap sold for around $0.15 per kilo at Agbogbloshie in May 2020. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

11-year-old Agbogbloshie Boy With Old Computer Monitor

Agbogbloshie in May 2020: An emphasis on the daily life at Agbogbloshie — behind an 11-year-old boy engaged in hazardous child labour in the area. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Ibrahim, 11 years old, here struggles with a tough glass.

E-waste miner: An 11-year-old Agbogbloshie e-waste miner is about to smash an old CRT computer monitor against a rock to reclaim the iron materials inside. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Primitive e-waste recycling: Ibrahim, 11 years old, is about to smash an old computer desktop against a rock to recover the shadow mask and other iron materials inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. Ibrahim is frequently cut by flying glass from CRT TVs and monitors. He is also exposed to hazardous substances such as lead and cadmium. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

What Happens After All of This?

Child labour at Agbogbloshie: Osei, 15 years old, and Mustafa, 13 years, had spent more than an hour using bare hands and stones to reclaim shadow masks and other precious metals from old CRT TVs and computer monitors at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. They are now ready to weigh and sell. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

It’s now time to weigh and sell. But first, let’s see what they got.

Hazardous child labour: Osei, 15 years old, and Mustafa, 13 years, are getting ready to go and weigh and sell shadow masks and other iron materials recovered from old CRT TVs. The lead-filled CRT TVs were hit with rocks and against each other to remove the panel and funnel glass for the shadow mask and other precious metals. They were exposed to lead and other toxic materials. More than 31 million children in Africa are estimated to be in hazardous child labour. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Hazardous child labour: Children engaged in hazardous child labour had used their bare hands and stones to recover shadow masks and other metals from old CRT TVs at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. This exposed them to heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, and barium. About 9% of children in Africa are in hazardous work, according to ILO estimates. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Electronic waste recycling and child labour: 14-year-old Bright Ankrah has recovered iron materials from an old CRT TV at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. These sold for $0.15 per kilo in May 2020. Approximately 14% of children in Ghana between 5 and 17 years in hazardous child labour, UNICEF estimates show. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

CRT TV Shadow Mask: 14-year-old Bright Ankrah with ‘I can do it’ on the front of his t-shirt had just recovered a shadow mask from an old CRT TV at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. He used his bare hands and stones to separate the panel and funnel glass from the precious metals inside the old television set. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Child labour and e-waste: 11-yer-old Ibrahim had just reclaimed shadow masks from old CRT TVs at Agbogbloshie. He sold them at around $0.15 per kilo at Agbogbloshie. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Child Labour: Kweku Frimpong, 12 years old, smile and display shadow masks he had just reclaimed from old CRT TVs at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Here’s Frimpong working earlier.

Agbogbloshie Image: Kweku Frimpong, 12 years old, is using a stone to break apart an old CRT TV for the iron materials inside at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Time To Weigh And Sell

E-waste recycling: Children engaged in hazardous child labour at Agbogbloshie are getting ready to weigh and sell shadow masks (and other materials) recovered from the informal recycling of old CRT TVs. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

There’s a selling point just nearby, so it’s now time to see how they managed.

CRT TV Recycling: Recovered iron-nickel alloy materials from old CRT TVs being weighed for sale at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Buyer now inspecting the metals.

Child labour in Ghana: Mustafa, 13 years, and Osei, 15, are weighing shadow masks, and other iron materials from old CRT TVs they had used bare hands and stones to dismantle. Iron scraps sold for around $0.15 per kilo at Agbgobloshie in May 2020. Nearly 2 million children in Ghana are in child labour, according to UNICEF. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

How much did Mustafa and Osei weigh? Let’s zoom in.

Scrap metal scale at Agbogbloshie, Ghana. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Around 24kg. Iron scrap sold at GH₵0.80 (around $0.15) per kilo in May 2020 at Agbogbloshie.

Agbogbloshie Scrap Dealer: A scrap dealer at Agbogbloshie who had just bought nearly 25kg of iron materials from children engaged in hazardous child labour, is throwing the new goods on top of other bagged scrap metals. He bought them at GH₵0.80 (around $0.15) per kilo. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

The buyer now secures his new goods.

Child labour: Osei, 15 years old, and Mustafa, 13 years, engaged in hazardous child labour in Ghana smile and display how much they had earned for the morning. They had earlier used bare hands and stones to break apart old CRT TVs for the iron-nickel alloy materials inside. They sold the precious metals for around $0.15 per kilo at Agbogbloshie, earning them GH₵10 each (around $1.74). They were exposed to heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, and barium. Around 152 million children worldwide are victims of child labour, with 73 million engaged in hazardous work, the ILO statistics show. © 2020 Muntaka Chasant

Approximated, Osei and Mustafa got GH₵20 in total (around $3.45). Each took GH₵10 ($1.7) for the day’s work.

Yes, that’s all they got for the risk and exposure to lead and other heavy metals.

But Osei and Mustafa are happy. The $1.7 should get them some food and new sets of clothes. They might even keep a change for their urban poor parents.

Here’s a puzzle for you:

The iron materials now begin their journey.

Where do you think they are headed?

The Place of Urban Poor Children in Society

We are all in a tussle, but the urban poor are more torn apart by the system.

Sequestered on the fringes, urban poor children face severe exclusion and misery. Not even basic services such as safe water, adequate sanitation, and health care reach them.

For me, the situation of the children on this page is not because of something that happened to them or their poor parents, but the consequence of the society in which they live. Perhaps my unfinished poem at the beginning of this page captures this.

I will be happy to answer your questions below.

Sources

May 20, 2020

14 Min read time

Comments (2):

Anna Hoas

May 24, 2020at 1:15 pm

Thank you so much for documenting this uncomfortable and largely ignored issue. 🙏🏾 The photos are powerful and the captions bring us so close to the reality of these children and young men.
I am running the social media for Take 10 Volunteer – at the moment we have had to suspend our solidarity work / volunteer programmes because of the corona situation) – but we still want to bring important social justice / human rights / climate justice topics to our followers. I would like to use some of your photos for our Instagram account on the World Day Against Child Labour which is on 12 June. You can see our account here: https://www.instagram.com/take10volunteer/
We will of course credit you and put a link to your article / website in our caption and on the linktree in the bio. What do you think?

Best,

Anna
Reply
- Muntaka Chasant
  
  May 24, 2020at 3:00 pm
  
  Anna,
  
  Thanks for the feedback.
  
  You are doing a fantastic job yourself.
  
  Normally, I’ll say no, but I’ll permit you to use 5 photographs with credits and links back to the article/muntaka.com ONLY for the occasion and the Instagram handle you mentioned.
  
  I saw Casablanca for probably the 100th time last night, and Victor Laszlo’s remark at the end to Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) is more apt.
  
  “Welcome back to the fight. This time I know our side will win.”
  
  Keep up the fight, and don’t let the flame die out!
  
  Best,
  Muntaka Chasant.
  Reply

Child Labour in Photos: Electronic Waste

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