The delegates walk in 6 vehicles, one by one, mines and Portovelo Zaruma in the province of El Oro, which so far has found that girls and boys under the age of 15 engaged in work harmful to their health and for their training.

Until this day 34 mines have been inspected and has detected the presence of 10 children and adolescents engaged in activities not permitted.

Child labor in banana plantations and mines, is considered by the International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 182, as the worst forms of child labor and is also an activity prohibited by the Code of Children and Adolescents, Art. 87, given the high risk to the overall development of children from contact with toxic and harmful substances, as well as being exposed to bear excessive burdens.

From next week the inspector of El Oro, Pablo Loayza, is to address the legal representatives of the banana plantations and mines cited by complying with the provisions of labor laws in the country.

An estimated one million children work in mining and quarrying around the world. Most had not reached the age of 10.

The numbers on child labor in Ecuador put the Andean nation among the countries with the highest rates of this violation of human rights in Latin America. It is estimated that more than 1 million citizens, between 5 and 17 years, working in areas such as flower, banana, garbage dumps, domestic help or as street vendors.

However, gold mining, particularly as practiced on a craft, stands out as the most dangerous in which children are involved up to five years. "In the case of child miners, is even worse because it is a problem unknown to the majority of the population of Ecuador", warning Alexandra Bonilla, who is cooperating with the Program on Elimination of Child Labor of the International Labor Organization (ILO).

"At work there's nothing nice, I failed to do anything. I advise other girls and boys who did not come here to mine because life is ugly. Here you will come to suffer, to work, to carry such materials pesadísimos . It suffers enough here, "says a girl of 16 years working in mining camps in the country as Zaruma, Portovelo, Nambija, Chinapinza, Ponce Enriquez, among others. Like her, there are over 2 billion children occupied with the extraction of gold in Ecuador.

Much of the children are in the mines, which are responsible for deposits that mining industry considers unproductive. This activity is characterized by low technology, low-security systems, industrial control under the health and health of workers, the lack of technicians, the low production output, instability and rotation of the work force; Low pay and poor legal and institutional integration.

In such conditions, children are exposed to danger: crushed by the landslide of rocks, disorders of bones and muscles by excessive burdens of the mineral, injuries and diseases of the skin by chronic exposure to sunlight and high temperatures, assaults physical and psychological received from the miners adults.

But Ecuador and begins to implement programs to eradicate child labor miner who are achieving success in Peru, where there are 50 thousand children associated with this activity for the country's main gold producer in Latin America.

Therefore, effective action to eliminate child labor should influence the communities, encouraging organizational development to enable them to continue the extremely lucrative activity without allowing violations of basic rights such as the exploitation of child labor.

However, the problem of child miners in the two Andean countries still do not receive the necessary attention.

More than 250 million children between 5 and 17 years old, who works in the world. De estos, 180 millones lo hacen en las peores formas de esclavitud infantil, servidumbre por deudas, prostitución, o como niños soldados. Of these, 180 million are in the worst forms of child slavery, debt bondage, prostitution, or as child soldiers.

About 70 of every 100, are working in agriculture, hunting, fishing, retail, and logging. The majority in Latin America, Africa and Asia. In Ecuador is estimated that child workers exceeded 800 thousand.