Hire a child? Hurt a child? Kill a Child?

Thu 20 July 2023

It is hard to tell the tale of the more than 200,000 children, girls, boys, women and men of the Democratic Republic of Congo who, as “artisan” miners, are exploited every day to mine minerals that are used in the consumer electronic devices we love and depend upon. It is hard to talk about how they are forced to work in hostile mines containing traces of Uranium while breathing toxic air filled with Sulphur. About how they are forced to give up basic necessities of life, such as safe drinking water, sanitation, primary education, or electricity, just to make $1-$2 a day working for 10-12 hours in order to eat that night. Risking their lives often, as the mines collapse often.

This is the story of the artisan cobalt minors in Congo. They mine Cobalt, crucial component of lithium-based batteries. US-based companies such as Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Dell, and Google, directly profit from the sale of such batteries in all forms of consumer electronics. Through a convoluted supply chain involving Chinese traders, and with the help of the corrupt Congolese dictatorial government, they have remained in the shadows, claiming “zero tolerance”, while manipulating via their massive wealth a system that enables excruciating child labor and modern slavery. For the sake of making hundreds of billions of dollars every year.

It is time to open our eyes. Slavery lives to this day, while children, women and men are exploited by our tech corporations.

Every iPhone has components made by a child slave in Congo.

Every MacBook was, in part, made with the involvement of a teenage Congolese mother, many of who goes to the toxic mines of Congo everyday to mine heterogenite, while their children.

Every Tesla car, deemed better on environment, has up to 15 kg of Cobalt. How green was it for the people who mined the Cobalt? Is modern slavery green too?

Do not make the mistake of trusting the speech delivered by corporate companies. Apple “shifting to 100% use of renewable cobalt”, Tesla “switching to LFP batteries”, etcetera. They are only trying to make it harder for human rights activities and advocates to trace the connection between the top and the bottom of the supply chain. The only way we can ever know when these corporations make their Cobalt data open for the civil inquiries. We shall not stop until we can make them accountable, and then pay for the development of infrastructure to help the people who they have enslaved, now and in the past.

Hold the dictators accountable! Hold the capitalist colonials accountable! Apple, Tesla, Microsoft, Dell, and Google.

Supplementary materials on Cobalt mines of Congo

Videos

• 1-minute glimpse into modern slavery in Congo

• Half-hour documentary film about Cobalt mining in Congo

Cobalt Red:

• A 1.5 hour presentation on Cobalt Red (Siddharth Kara)

• The Cobalt Red book (Publisher, Amazon) (Siddharth Kara)

Originally published on Substack at https://penguing.substack.com/p/hire-a-child-hurt-a-child-kill-a.

Tags:

• substack
• colonialism
• development
• africa
• congo
• history