By Namo Chuma and Juliane Kippenberg“Janet” is a 4-year-old girl from Kabwe in Zambia’s Central Province who suffers from frequent headaches. She is unusually small for her age and often has difficulty remembering things. Recent blood tests have shown that she has extremely high lead levels in her blood, which would be consistent with her symptoms. Her mother is both worried about her daughter’s long-term health as well as angry, and says she wants to fight against the now closed lead and zinc mine that has made her daughter sick.Kabwe is the site of a mine and smelter that polluted the environment with extremely high levels of toxic lead from 1904 to 1994. The mine was originally owned by British colonial companies, including Anglo American, and later nationalized by Zambia. It was closed in 1994, but the mine’s waste was never cleaned up, and even now, open waste dumps continue to pollute nearby residential areas […]
Will Zambia Protect Children from Kabwe’s Toxic Legacy?
