Cons of child labor in cobalt mines Patch#

Each battery pack in an EV requires up to 10 kilograms of refined Cobalt.

Kara foresees an increase in the demand of Cobalt of 500% or more over the next ten or twenty years, “primarily being driven by adoption of electric vehicles. There are more than 15,000 human beings crammed into that pit digging by hand and…you hear the mallets, you hear the shouting you hear the grunts.

Some children we interviewed did not remember the last time they had a meal.’”Īt one of DRC’s largest mines, Kara recalled, “I walk into this place and this is what I see. Sister Catherine Mutindi, the founder of Good Shepherd Kolwezi, a Catholic charity that tries to stop child labor, said, ‘If the kids don’t make enough money, they have no food for the whole day. In May 2021, the New Yorker published a story that revealed how “Children who work in the mines are often drugged, in order to suppress hunger. Most of them wear flip-flops on their feet. Yet the workers in these pits have no safety protections such as masks and gloves. Left untreated, it can lead to congestive heart failure and other health problems. There are children, caked in grime and filth, digging in pits and tunnels to excavate cobalt containing ore and that ore gets processed and refined and sent up into the formal supply chain to smart phone makers and manufacturers around the World.”įor all its value, cobalt is toxic to human eyes, skin, lungs, and heart muscle. “What I have seen in the Congo,” he says, “is Hell on earth.

Cons of child labor in cobalt mines Patch#

When the demand for cobalt began to spike about a decade ago, it dramatically impacted “a small little patch of the Congo’s Southeastern Corner, a part that used to be called Katanga, and before anybody knew what was happening, the Chinese government and Chinese mining companies took control of almost all the big mines.” Since then, Kara says, “The local population has been displaced, is under duress, and they dig in absolutely sub-human gut-wrenching conditions for a dollar a day feeding Cobalt up the supply chain.”Īfter several research visits to the region, Kara now concludes that, “Never in human history has there been more suffering that generated more profit and was linked to the lives of more people around the world ever, ever in history than what’s happening in the Congo right now” Around 74% of the cobalt on the planet lies in one small area of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in south central Africa. His latest efforts have focused on the mining of a particular mineral in central Africa, the demand for which is exploding worldwide.Ĭobalt is an essential ingredient in lithium-ion batteries. An attorney and author, Kara has specialized in human trafficking and slavery around the world. He also serves as a Visiting Scientist at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Siddharth Kara spends much of his time each year lecturing to young men and women at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.