Another group vulnerable to the effects of environmental pollution is children—even though protecting child health is a core obligation in international law. Toxic chemicals have particularly harmful consequences for children, whose developing bodies absorb them more easily than those of adults, leading in some cases to irreversible long-term damage, disability, or even death.
Children from poor, disadvantaged, or marginalized backgrounds can be particularly at risk as their communities lack political influence and information. For example, Human Rights Watch research on child labor in artisanal gold mining in Mail—an industry that involves an estimated 15 million artisanal gold miners globally—has found that children’s exposure to mercury, a toxic metal, has hardly been addressed on national or global levels (A Poisonous Mix, 2011).
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