Children are involved in all of the mining tasks, with the youngest engaged in carrying water out from the mines, taking the mules loaded with coal to the road, and packing the coal into bags. The older children are primarily engaged in the more physically demanding tasks such as carrying heavy bags of coal on their backs, dragging tins of coal tied to the shoulders from the inside of the mines to the outside, driving the electric car to take coal out of the mine, and digging charcoal with a pike inside the mine. The mine workers face work related hazards such as landslides, floods, fires, explosions, and gas problems. In addition, children and adult miners alike face physical dangers including overexertion, hernias, lack of oxygen, and, especially for children, deformation of the bone structure. Some children are provided only with room and board while others are paid according to the hours worked and the amount of coal extracted.
Payment is often late and less than the legal minimum wage.
The Salazar study found that the socio-economic conditions of the coal mining areas had a significant impact on child labor in the mines. It is common for child miners to come from unstable and poor families where the parents themselves are uneducated and may have worked in the coal mines as children. There is very little appreciation of the value of education or recreation and, therefore, parents do not encourage their children to attend school. Salazar observed that children are generally undervalued and seen primarily as additional income earners for the family. 19 Emerald Mining The American Embassy in Bogota reports that there may be some instances where children work in emerald mining.