‘We must stop children from illegal mining’ says Sierra Leone MP
The Chairman of the Parliamentary Oversight Committee on Mineral Resources in Parliament Hon. Amadu Kanu, has called on parents and community leaders in the Kono District to take immediate steps to ensure that children engaged in illegal mining are taken out of the mines and enrolled in school.
Expressing deep concern about the rate at which children expected to be in school are engaged in illegal mining, he said education must be the diamond mine of the country and not illegal mining sites.
He told this paper that there should not be any delay in getting the children away from the dangerous mining sites; in reaction to a working visit he made to Kono where he said he discovered that many children below 18 years, and some as young as 8 years of age, were engaged in illegal mining activities.
Describing the situation of the children in Kono as very serious, the Parliamentarian said allowing the children to engage in illegal mining was an irresponsibility of the parents and community leaders.
He stressed that education is the key to accelerate national development and that any community that down played it would be left behind.
“The world is not waiting for anyone, community or country, that treats education with contempt as it is education that drives our lives and all of us must work at advancing it”, he concluded.
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