Kat Gale’s Reviews > Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives > Status Update

Imagine that on a remote hill deep in the Congo’s mining provinces, a child can be found digging for cobalt, wearing a muddy shirt with the logo of the behemoth American financial services company that had to be bailed out for $180 billion during the 2008 financial crisis. Imagine what even 1% of that money could do if it were spent on the people who needed it, not stolen by those who exploited them.

Joseph Conrad, Arthur Conan Doyle, Mark Twain, and Booker T. Washington were among the many supporters of the Congo Reform Association...bringing an end to the most brazen system of slavery in the history of Africa. Or so it seemed...More than a century after Morel & Casement’s extraordinary campaign to end slavery in the Congo, a new system of “legalized robbery enforced by violence” thrives in the mining provinces.

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?

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.”

After a trip to the Congo, the world back home no longer makes sense. It is difficult to reconcile how it even inhabits the same planet. Neatly arranged mountains of vegetables at grocery stores seem vulgar. Clean air and water feel like a crime. The markers of wealth and consumption appear violent. Most of it was built on violence, neatly tucked away in history books that sanitize the truth.

The Chinese pay billions to the government, and the politicians close their eyes. Organizations like IDAK [Sustainable Investment in Katanga] and other civil society organizations are allowed to exist only to show they exist.

Before getting a concession, the mining companies must submit a plan on waste management to the government. Of course, they do not adhere to their plans. But the government is not sending people to monitor their activities either.

The mining companies do not control the runoff of effluents from their processing operations. They do not clean up when they have chemical spills. Toxic dust and gases from mining plants and diesel equipment spreads for many kilometers and are inhaled by the local population. The mining companies have polluted the entire region. All the crops, animals, and fish stocks are contaminated.

Samples of dust taken inside homes in the Copper Belt had an average of 170mg lead...the EPA recommends a max safe limit of 40mg inside homes. Levels as high as 170mg can cause neurological damage, muscle and joint pain, headaches, gastrointestinal ailments, and reduced fertility in adults. In children, lead poisoning can cause irreversible developmental damage as well as weight loss, vomiting, and seizures.