In the half-light of a makeshift mine in Jharkhand, a young girl’s hands tremble as they sift through the dirt, searching for glittering mica flakes. Each fragment she collects will one day help form the lustrous sheen of luxury cosmetics and gleaming car dashboards. The Mica, once a prized commodity for its iridescent glow, has become a symbol of both beauty and brutality. The price of its shimmer is measured in human suffering, far removed from the vanity tables and shopping carts of the global consumer.
Mica is woven into the fabric of modern life. It is the sparkle in your eyeshadow, the sheen in your lipstick, the glimmer in your car’s dashboard—used in everything from cosmetics to electronics. Its versatility has turned it into an indispensable material. But hidden beneath its seductive allure lies a dark underbelly: the human cost of its extraction. In the mica-rich regions of Jharkhand and Bihar, the grim reality of illegal mining is evident in the faces of children, whose fragile bodies are the backbone of an industry that thrives on exploitation.
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