Mongolia $1.25-a-Day Labor Amid $4,500 Handbags Stirs Anger

Sapaar is 23 and he’s a “ninja” miner, hauling low-quality coal from a pit in the Mongolian steppes for 12 hours a day.

Sapaar’s coal is not the steel-making variety the bigger mines export to China, a trade that helped the economy expand a world-beating 17.3 percent in 2011. The boom brought luxury retailers such as LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA to Ulan Bator, Mongolia’s capital, to sell $4,500 handbags. Sapaar doesn’t shop there.