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Food comes before education for many, said Roger-Claude Liwanga, an expert in the exploitation of children in Congo's artisanal mines, of Emory University in the United States. Photo: Filepic/AFP
Squeezed on to benches and on the floor, the Congolese students of Kipushi Primary School did not complain that they only had a few, battered textbooks to share – just down the road, hundreds of less fortunate children were working in open-pit mines.
Enrolment at the school – named after the town of 174,000 people, which is dominated by its copper, zinc and cobalt mines – has risen by 75% to 1,400 students since the Democratic Republic of Congo introduced free primary education in 2019.
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