Children in cobalt mines feed our high-tech urge, DRC

In his article published in Raconteur on 04.06.2019, "Cobalt: the dark side of a clean future", James Gordon states: "An estimated 35 000 children work in perilous conditions to extract cobalt from the ground in the Democratic Republic of Congo."

"Yanick Kalumbu Tshiwengu, a former child miner from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is lucky to be alive. When he was just 11 years old, every day, he descended several metres underground into makeshift tunnels and perilous shafts dug out by the miners, never knowing if he would see daylight and his family again."

"With no protective clothing, accidents were common. Several of his friends died underground. Yanick narrowly escaped with his life on two occasions, once when an excavator began closing the entrances to the pit shaft, blocking his escape route, and when a landslide caused a collapse. Like many of his friends, he began sniffing glue and gasoline to banish his fears, but this could not block out the painful memories that continue to haunt him."

Yanick said: "It was a living hell. As children we were exploited and worked in very dangerous situations. We saw things that no child should see. There was a culture of rape and violence. Girls often fell victim to rape, which as children we were powerless to prevent. Sometimes lives were lost for a few francs. No good can ever come from the mines and I’d like to see them all closed so no child has the same experience as me."

In its article US tech giants sued over DRC cobalt mine child labour deaths published 17.12.2019, CBS News details: "Some of the biggest technology firms in the United States have been accused in a lawsuit of complicity in the death and maiming of hundreds, if not thousands of African children who mine cobalt, a mineral vital to the production of the lithium-ion batteries in everything from smartphones to electric cars. The defendants named in the suit are Apple, Google parent company Alphabet, Microsoft, Dell and Tesla."

"The lawsuit was filed on December 15, 2019 in the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. by the non-profit organization International Rights Advocates, on behalf of 13 anonymous plaintiffs from the DRC. The complaint accuses the tech giants of knowingly benefiting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children in DRC to mine cobalt" reported CBS News.

Images in the court documents, showed children with disfigured or missing limbs. Some of the plaintiffs children were killed in tunnel collapses was killed while working in Mashamba East mine on April 16, 2018 at the age of 17 according to International Rights Advocates.