BBC reveals a sexual abuse of children

This story contains details, including video that some people can find disturbing.

The most shocking thing about Jonathan, who lasts six grueling months living and working underground in an abandoned gold mine in South Africa, was an abuse that he was affected by children.

Some of them are recruited for cheap labor, but others are introduced specifically for sex, campaigns say.

Jonathan, who is already at the end of his 20s, migrates to South Africa on the nearby promise to make easy money working in one of his dozens of discarded mines, imprisoned by multinational companies, as they were no longer commercial viable.

We defend his full identity as he is afraid of repression of vicious criminal gangs that run the illegal mining industry for media talks.

Details of what young people were going, even though they appeared after the death of dozens of illegal miners near the city of Stilfontein at the end of last year, when Mina was blocked by police.

In a calm and stable voice, Jonathan describes the heat, long hours and limited food and sleep options that have taken a fee on his body.

But a lasting memory is what happened to the minor miners in the shaft where he worked.

“I saw these children in the mine-actually teenagers, 15, 17 years old.

“Others sometimes take advantage of them. It was a little scary and I wasn’t comfortable.”

He said they had been raped by elderly miners who promised to give them some of the gold they found in exchange for sex.

“If this child is desperate for money, he will take the risk.”

Jonathan describes how children will turn to teams of protection miners, but “this team will have conditions.”

Sex was also used as a punishment if teenagers failed to accomplish a task for their team.

Jonathan says that the children in the mine he worked in were alien and do not realize what they fit.

A mining and activist researcher Makhotla Sefuli supports this.

He says criminal gangs are specifically aimed at working in illegal mines in South Africa.

Many of them are abducted from neighboring countries and traffic. They are lured by unfounded promises to find them to work in the official mining industry.

“Their passports were confiscated when they reach South Africa … It is commonly known that these young boys are abused,” says G -n Sefuli.

The BBC talks to miners who have worked in at least two other illegal mines who told us that they saw children abuse the shafts where they work.

Tshepo, not his real name, says he has seen older men who force young boys to have sex with them underground.

“In some cases, they did it for the money. Some are only raised for this purpose because of the financial incentives that will come with the practice of maybe trading sex underground.”

He adds that the abuse has deeply affected the children.

“They change their behavior models and have trust problems. They don’t want to get close to them because they think they can no longer trust anyone.”

The illegal mining industry in South Africa has made global titles last year after opposing police and miners in the Bufflesfontein Golden Mine, near the city of Stilfontein in the northwestern province.

Authorities were trying to limit the illegal yield, which the government said cost South Africa’s $ 3.2 billion ($ 2.6 billion in British pounds) had lost revenue last year.

They launched an operation called Vala Umgodi, or seal the hole in December 2023, promising to take a difficult position for the gangs.

As part of the operation, the police limit the amount of food and water that came down to Stilonetein’s mine, as a minister said, “smoking” illegal miners. Officials said the men refused to come out of fear of being arrested.

Soon, the miners began to appear, showing dozens of cheated men asking to be rescued, as well as rows of body bags. In the end, the court ordered the authorities to save men.

Among the educated were many who said they were minors, but since a number of them were migrants without documents confirming how old they were, the authorities conducted medical tests to receive an assessment.

Through this, the Ministry of Social Development (DSD) has confirmed that 31 of Stilfontein’s rescued miners have been found as children. They were all citizens of Mozambican and in November 27 were repatriated.

Save the children, South Africa has helped to translate some of the interviews between minors and rescue workers.

“They went through trauma because some of them also saw others be sexually operated,” the CEO of the Charity Gugu Xaba told the BBC.

“Just the feeling that they may not get out of there, they destroyed these children mentally.

“The elderly miners would start by raising them, behaving as they like them.”

She says that the children were then made to have sexual actions on the adults and were then raped, days after day.

“You find that the adult will have three or four of them that do the same thing.”

The XABA says that the mining gangs are recruiting children because they are easier to manipulate and more expensive.

“Children don’t understand when you say,” I’ll pay you 20 rand ($ 1; £ 0.80) per day. “Adults sometimes refuse to work, but children find themselves without choice.

In addition to being exploited financially, she says there are gangs that recruit children specifically for sex.

Many illegal miners spend months underground, rarely uploaded to the surface. The markets emerge underground to provide them with everything they need.

“Most children are traffic to be used as sex slaves. And you have a pimp who accepts money, and that means that every day this child is used as a commercial sex worker.”

The BBC asked police and DSD if anyone would be charged with allegations of sexual abuse. They did not respond to our requests.

A source working in the affairs of Stilfontein miners said many children did not want to testify.

Meanwhile, the illegal mining industry continues to flourish.

And with approximately 6,000 free mines potentially available for research, this is a business that is unlikely to end at any time, leaving thousands of vulnerable children at risk.