What are the most important things for women?
If you put these things in a sequence, everyone has a different opinion, but no matter how they are arranged, cosmetics can definitely be ranked and can be at the top.
With the rapid development of society, cosmetics are also constantly updated, cosmetics of different shapes, styles, functions of cosmetics emerge one after another, and now cosmetics after use the effect is more obvious, look more beautiful and more dazzling.
Largely because of this stuff.
This humble stone, called mica, is a natural mineral that has high heat resistance and electrical resistance, and blends well with other materials, which is a perfect fit for cosmetics manufacturing.
As a result, mica quickly became the darling of the makeup world, with almost all of its presence from eye shadow, foundation, eyebrow pencil, lip stain, etc. It soon occupied half of the makeup industry, and a large number of mica were used in cosmetics every day.
But mica is not common, and most of the world's mica mines are in India. The huge market demand has made the value of mica ore rise rapidly, but a new problem is in front of them.
That is, mica ore rarely has huge individuals, most of them are small, and they are all mixed in sand and gravel, requiring advanced digging and screening machines.
But this will multiply the cost of mining, so many miners have abandoned machinery and started to use manual mining, as a small area and a large population of India, the last thing is cheap labor.
Although this is a little less efficient, it is much less expensive.
But many black-hearted mine owners were not satisfied, and their targets began to target those underage children.
Although India has always claimed to be a fast-growing "powerhouse", in fact, India has not achieved even the most basic poverty eradication, and now more than 21.9% of India's population has not been lifted out of poverty, and nearly 300 million people are below the subsistence line.
Of these 300 million people, there are tens of millions of children who do not go to school or have any childhood, and who spend most of their time helping their parents with household chores and working to get a full meal.
The work of digging mica ore does not require much effort, nor does it require certain professional knowledge, just need to find mica ore and screen it out. As a result, these children became perfect miners for black-hearted miners.
Miners can hire a large number of children for a fraction of the price of an adult, and although the children and their parents know that this is malicious exploitation by the mineholders, it is really the only opportunity to make money.
Over time, the use of child labor became the consensus of many mine owners, and in Jalkhand, India, more than 20,000 child laborers worked day and night in the mines.
In order to save costs, the boss here uses manpower for almost the entire mining step, so let alone large machinery, there is no modern equipment here, the only equipment is common agricultural tools such as hoes, and the rest is by children's hands.
Years of mining have rapidly reduced the amount of mica on the surface, and the cave has become deeper and deeper, and children need to climb into the swarthy hole, dig the sand inside, and then transport it out through the hanging basket.
Long-term work experience has also made children experienced veterans, older children are responsible for digging in the cave, the younger ones are responsible for transportation and screening, working in such mines with zero protection measures is very dangerous, there will be multiple collapse accidents every month, and a large number of children die here every year, but in order to make money, they have no choice.
Because the income of the lower hole is much higher than that of transportation on the ground, a dozen hours a day of work can bring them an income, while those children on the ground only have 0.25 dollars a day.
Yes, you read that right.
These children risked their lives for only such a pitiful salary.
In fact, this amount of money is only enough to barely feed themselves, but it can reduce the burden on the family, and many children can even save a small amount of money, which is a huge improvement compared to other children of the same age.
What they didn't know was that this "cheap" small stone, after being transported to other places for simple processing, would be worth hundreds of times, a figure they could not have imagined.
Thanks to the hard work of these children, 60% of the mica in the world's cosmetics now comes from India, and they have contributed to the flourishing of the entire cosmetics industry, and behind those bright colors, it is all the blood and tears of these children.