Rat hole miners

In the north of India
Within the Jaintia hills
Many a rat hole mine is found
A labyrinth of chills
Mini coal mines
Reached by foot and crawled into each day
Children from the age of 10
Working now for pay

Terrible conditions
Rocky outcrops where
Coal is dug and cut deep down
And carted out each day
They come in from Nepal
And Bangladesh to find
A pittance in conditions
That kind of blow your mind

Slaves would turn around and go
But these children do their thing
Everything is against the law
But the law just doesn’t bring
Anything to bear on these mine owners
Not at all
The migrants earn enough to eat
With their backs against the wall

The dust is clearly filthy
The dangers down there stark
Slippery and little air
Untrained and in the dark
Hit by wire and rocks can fall
Children do get bashed
It’s very very narrow
These children have been trashed

Waking up a pale blue sky
A golden sun does rise
They climb out of their hovels
Ragged they realise
No water not to speak of
No doctors none at all
It is all unregulated
Nobody on call

No schools no choice
No life
Child miners live in squalor
And share the awful strife

Impulse is a group of souls
Trying hard to see
Migrant children taken back
To school and it can be
Two young boys
We watched them sent back to Nepal
To go to school to train
At least they didn’t work the mines
No never again

India is knowing but chooses to look away
Many of the mines are owned by government servants
So they say
There is so much corruption
People on the make
Profiting from meagre wages
All of them on the take

Children working all hours
In these satanic halls
Black with dust as needs must
With walls and walls and walls
Of coal the black gold thrust
Into your face all of your days
Choking through your lungs
And creating the malaise

One has to think of children
The foundation stones of life
Working in this evil place
Jam packed full on strife
The government are earning
From slaves and many die
They fall from a great height
And forever lie

No one cares to find them
Thats the way it is
Horror it’s so awful
Seeing it makes me cry