Author Siddharth Kara is sounding the alarm on a growing human rights issue in the Katanga region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DCR) after he witnessed workers, including children, laboring in cobalt mines for $2- a day.
Cobalt, a key chemical element found in lithium-ion batteries and used in many everyday devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops, is mined in appalling conditions in the DCR, according to Kara.
Roughly 90% of the world’s cobalt supply is mined in the DCR, according to DailyMail.com.
Kara, an adjunct lecturer at the Harvard Carr Center for Human Rights, painted a grim picture of life for African families, telling Daily Mail.com, "there are hundreds of thousands of the poorest people on the planet [mining for cobalt]."
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"The moral clock has been dialed back to colonial times. They’re doing it for $2-a-day and for them, it’s the difference between whether or not they eat that day, so they don’t have the option of saying no," he said.
Tech giants like Apple, Tesla, Microsoft and Samsung have come under fire for turning a blind eye to the exploitation of workers while publicly insisting they only trade with cobalt suppliers, smelters and refiners who adhere to rigorous work standards.
Kara said the photos he took of young children no older than six or seven years old carrying large bags of rocks and mothers working laboriously while carrying their babies paint a different reality.
A growing trend nationwide of pushing for more eco-friendly products and electric vehicles (EV) is exacerbating the issue in the DCR, according to Kara.
"It’s supposed to be a green choice, getting an EV. Well, it’s not green for everybody," he said.
The human rights activist and author of the upcoming book "Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives," added that American companies need to change course and re-evaluate their relationship with cobalt suppliers who put profit over people.
"[Companies] initiate [the] demand for cobalt. It starts with them – it is their responsibility," he said. "The supply chain only exists because of demand. They all say they source it ethically, they will all say supply chains are ethical but then you go to the Congo and you see it’s not true."
Tesla, in 2020, closed a deal with Glencore, a Canadian mining company that runs a cobalt and copper mine in the Katanga region, in an effort to increase its acquisition of cobalt for its electric car batteries.
CEO Elon Musk announced in 2022 the company has plans to move away from buying cobalt batteries and instead produce batteries in-house.
