Meet the women in Peru called 'pallaqueras,' which roughly translates as ‘gold-pickers,' who make a living gleaning gold from rubble reut.rs/39vfiFt 1/9 
The men of La Rinconada bar all women from the mines dug beneath the rock. The men say the female spirit of the mine, called ‘La Bella Durmiente’ or 'The Sleeping Beauty,' would be jealous and angry if women were to try to steal her riches 2/9
So instead, the women take turns to scramble up onto piles of black scree that the men have dumped. Teetering high above the ground, they stoop and flip over the rocks, their keen eyes scanning the lumps for a glimmer of gold 3/9
Anything promising they pocket, and take back to process and sell to black-market dealers whose stalls line La Rinconada’s main street 4/9
'In a week sometimes I can get 1 gram or 2 grams of gold,' said Eva Chura, one of the magpies of the mountain, who came 12 years ago to La Rinconada, a gold shantytown in the Peruvian Andes 5/9
Life is hard, Chura says, but she is better off gold-picking. 'I don’t count my husband, because he is no help as a father or a husband,' she adds 6/9
To extract gold from the rocks the men and women use mercury, a toxin which they rinse with melted ice from the glacier. The water flows down the mountain into pools, puddles and rivers 7/9
Waste from gold-processing adds to its pollution by runoff from surrounding cities and untreated sewage. The fragments of gold these people produce has, at least in the past, made its way into supply chains of firms including phone makers and jewelers 8/9
Now, Chura and others in La Rinconada say the gold supply is running out in this area. Miners have been shot dead in the tunnels; young women are trafficked into brothels; fights are common. Read the full story reut.rs/39vfiFt by @mitrataj 📷@NachoDoce12 9/9
