Status Updates From Cobalt Red: How the Blood o...

The dividends of an education were too theoretical&too far into the future for those who survived day-to-day, especially when schools lacked support. It was no wonder that impoverished families across the Congo’s mining provinces relied on child labor to survive. It felt like cobalt stakeholders up the chain counted on it. Why help build schools or fund education when children could dig up cobalt for pennies instead?

Again, China/USA/Israel are the problems

Far removed from any signs of civilization, there was something akin to an ant colony of humans who tunneled, excavated, washed, packed, &fed cobalt up the chain to the companies that produced the world’s rechargeable devices &cars. I never in all my trips to the Congo saw or heard of any of these companies or their downstream suppliers monitoring this part of the supply chain, or any of the countless places like it.

The original Belgian copper mines were run by Gécamines, and most of the men who lived in Likasi and Kambove worked at them. After Gécamines closed the mines, people started digging for themselves...Solange said that everything changed in 2012. They made it seem like a blessing. They said we should dig cobalt and get rich. Everyone started to dig, but no one became rich. We do not earn enough to meet our needs.”