Kabwe, around 150 kilometres (95 miles) north of the capital Lusaka, is known as one of the world's most polluted places from decades of lead and zinc mining.

More than 30 years after the mine's closure in 1994, residents are still exposed to extreme levels of toxic lead, found in the soil and dust around their homes, schools and roads.

Yet the government is still "facilitating hazardous mining and processing" in the area, HRW said in a 67-page report, citing licenses issued to South African, Chinese and local businesses.

It urged the government to revoke their permits and clean up the notorious pollution hazard.

Zambia's government did not respond to AFP's request for comment.

HRW said it interviewed residents and miners, conducted open-source research and analysed geo-spatial data.

"Companies are profiting in Kabwe from mining, removing, and processing lead waste at the expense of children's health," HRW's children's rights director Juliane Kippenberg said in the statement.

Highly-sought for industry, lead is nevertheless a particularly toxic metal that can cause severe health problems including brain damage and death, particularly in children, according to the World Health Organization.

More than 95 percent of children living near the Kabwe mine had elevated blood lead levels with about half requiring urgent treatment, the HRW report said.

- 'Sacrifice zone' -

Highly toxic waste had also been transported to various locations across the city, forming unfenced "piles of dark, sandy material, several metres high", the report said.

This had exposed up to 200,000 people in Kabwe to pollution, HRW said.

The concentration of lead in the soil had reached 60,000 milligrams per kilogram, according to the report, 300 times the threshold considered a hazard by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

In 2022, a UN expert listed Kabwe as being among so-called "sacrifice zones" where pollution and resultant health issues were the norm for nearby communities.

"The Zambian government should be protecting people from highly hazardous activities, not enabling them," said Kippenberg.

The Kabwe mine was part of mining company Anglo American from 1925 to 1974, during which experts say two-thirds of the lead currently in the local environment was likely to have been deposited.

It was then run by the Zambian government when the mining industry was nationalised, until its closure in 1994.

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