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The Slaves of mica, India

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India - Jharkhand - Kurari - Lalo Devi (bottom left) carries a bucket full of water with her son's help). Lalo, a 22-year-old girl from the village of Kurari, has been mining mica for the past seven years. Belonging to a landless family, Lalo works in the mines and as a daily farm labourer in monsoon time. Able to gain just 7 rupees per kilo, the woman is frequently forced to borrow money from the agents, a common reality in the village. “If someone falls sick or if we have to organize the marriage of one of our daughters, we have to ask advances” she explains, adding that her family now owes one agent 5,000 rupees at a monthly interest rate of 15 percent. “How can we repay it? It is very difficult because we only depend on what we find on the field”.