sieve dust and transport water around the site. Children are even visiting mines on their days off from school, influenced by their parents who have made money there. According to the Ministry of Finance, gold has become the top export commodity. In 2011, it earned Burkina Faso 127 billion CFA (US$247 million). Between 2007 and 2011, it brought in 440 billion CFA, accounting for 64.7 percent of all exports and 8 percent of GDP. Production rose from 23 tonnes in 2010 to 32 tonnes in 2011. Gold mines are spread across the country's northern, western, southwestern and central regions. Burkina Faso's gold industry employs slave laborers and does not spare children. In 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that gold mining becoming an even more fruitful industry, it has resulted in "an increased number of children working in gold mines and thousands of students leaving school." A December 2014 report further corroborates the fact that child labor and forced labor are common practices in Burkina Faso's mining industry. The mentioned DOL report contains a List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor and Burkina Faso is listed among 74 other countries where such labor conditions have been observed. Zinc Aim Resources Ltd. (AIM) of Australia continued with the development of the Perkoa zinc deposit, which is located about 120 km west of Ouagadougou. In December 2005, Snowden Mining Industry Consultants completed a bankable feasibility study for Perkoa. Production was expected to be about 130,000 t/yr of concentrate at a grade of 53% zinc. Overall zinc recovery to concentrate was projected to be 93%, and contained zinc production, to average 68,000 t/yr; zinc concentrates would be transported by railway to the port of Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire and by road to the port of Tema in Ghana. The first shipment of zinc concentrate was expected to be delivered in 2008. In its 2006 annual report, AIM announced that it had signed letters of intent with Louis Dreyfus Commodities Metals Suisse S.A., Votorantim Metais of Brazil, and Switzerland-based Xstrata plc to finalize offtake agreements for the production of zinc concentrates from Perkoa. Xstrata planned to process Perkoa concentrates through either the San Juan de Nieva zinc smelter in Spain or the Nordenham zinc smelter in Germany. According to AIM company reports, the government had upgraded the road that leads to the mine and had constructed a dam that would