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

Sexual assault was a scourge in almost every artisanal mining area I visited. The women and girls who suffered these attacks represented the invisible, brutalized backbone of the global cobalt supply chain. No one at the top of the chain even bothered making press statements about zero-tolerance policies on sexual assault against the women and girls who scrounged for their cobalt.

Ore transportation fees seemed little more than a money grab by the government...The fees made it impossible for most artisanal miners to access markets directly due to their inability to pay the tax. Being cut off from the marketplace forced them to accept submarket prices from négociants for their hard labor, further reinforcing the state of poverty that pushed them into artisanal mining to begin with.

Cobalt is toxic to touch and breathe, but that is not the biggest worry that the artisanal miners have. The ore often contains traces of radioactive uranium.

The road from Lumbubashi to Kipushi is the primary route of export for cobalt & other minerals from the DRC. The road was in good condition until 1997 when Kabila and his Rwanda-Uganda-backed army invaded& shelled the road. In 2010, a Chinese consortium repaved the road as part of an agreement brokered by Kabila, through which China managed to corner most of the global cobalt market before anyone knew what happened.

"All the mining companies treat the Congolese people like slaves,” Gloria said. “They think because our people are poor, they can be humiliated.”
“All Africans are poor in their eyes. They steal our resources to keep us poor!” Joseph exclaimed.
“When you see what the mining companies have done to our forests and rivers, your heart will cry,” Reine added.