Exposure to these ores by either parent dramatically increases the risk of stillbirth or birth defects. Indeed, cobalt mining’s impacts extend to the womb: a 2020 medical study found that women in the cobalt region “had metal concentrations that are among the highest ever reported for pregnant women.” The women who wash these ores have direct contact with radioactive elements occurring naturally in the cobalt ore and those used during the mining process. Moreover, the sex trade, inherently dehumanizing and objectifying, thrive around cobalt mines, and superstition has caused the rape and homicide of countless young girls. Workers, including children, labor in harsh and dangerous conditions to meet the world’s soaring demand for cobalt, a mineral essential to powering electric vehicles, laptops, and smartphones.
Around 40,000 children are working in dangerous cobalt mines, according to the UN’s children’s agency.
Creuseurs drug the children to dull their hunger and starve them if they do not collect enough cobalt soldiers dispatched by the government beat the children for trespassing on company mines and extort them for money. Half of the world’s cobalt reserves can be found in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where cobalt mines have been linked to hazardous working conditions and child labor. Children as young as three work in the mines they carry ore for adult creuseurs or join roaming bands of teenagers who dig or steal ore to sell. Amnesty International has traced cobalt mined through child labor to sixteen multinational companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, and Tesla. Child labour in mines was chiefly due to traffickers and operators of mines in the informal sector whom the Government was taking steps to combat. There are nonetheless positive policy pathways for improved.
CONS OF CHILD LABOR IN COBALT MINES PORTABLE
It’s a far cry from the toxic dust that children inhale as they mine the cobalt that powers the batteries we rely on for our phones and other portable electronic devices. Child labor, abuse, and deteriorating public health are frequently observed in cobalt mining.
An estimated 40,000 children work in the DRC’s mines, many of them in small-scale cobalt mining. Story Walk into any high-end phone shop and you’ll find all the hallmarks of the luxury tech market: slick surfaces, cool lines, spotless screens. Cobalt mining also adversely affects women and children, highlighting the moral corruption cobalt mining perpetuates. We work to end child labour in DR Congo’s cobalt mines.
0 kommentar(er)
