Galamsey
Vivian Schüller (Director), Sebastian Böhm (Director), Rainbow Circle Films (Production company)
Galamsey the literal meaning of which is to gather that money and sell, is a term which refers to a local artisanal gold miner in Ghana; a person mining for gold independent of mining companies, and digging small workings by hand. Under current Ghanaian law, it is illegal for galamseys to dig on land granted to mining companies as concessions. Ghana's galamsey, or small-scale illegal miner population, is estimated to employ half a million people. The galamsey operate wherever they can, mostly in poor conditions, and, says leading expert Dr. Gavin Hilson of the University of Manchester, it is a 'fundamentally poverty-driven industry'. Many women and children, as young as seven, also live and work at galamsey mine sites, often earning money by transporting ore from the many underground shafts which dot the landscape, carrying bags weighing up to 15 kg several hundred metres to where the material is crushed and washed. Many of these galamsey were once farmers but were pushed from their lands by the mining companies. They also complain of the chemical pollution of the rivers by the mining companies depriving them of clean drinking water . Ghana is a nation of great natural wealth but very little of the benefits of their exploitation filters down to the general populace
DVD Video, English, 2007
Rainbow Circle Films, [South Africa], 2007