Erstellt am: 19. 1. 2016 - 16:29 Uhr

Cobalt killer

Children mining cobalt for our smartphone batteries? Reality Check speaks with Amnesty International.

Next time you look at your smartphone and complain about the intermittent battery life, you may want to additionally consider the lives of children that are sent down into the artisanal mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo to dig cobalt with their hands.

Cobalt is an important ingredient in batteries for everyday items like mobile phones and laptops and cameras. To run your PC, your mobile phone or your MP3 player, you need rechargeable batteries containing cobalt. And guess where most of the world's cobalt comes from? The Democratic Republic of Congo (or DRC). In fact, the country holds almost half of the world's cobalt reserves.

According to a new report, Amnesty International and Afrewatch are citing major electronics brands, including Apple, Samsung and Sony, and saying these giants of industry are failing to do basic checks to ensure that cobalt mined by child labourers has not been used in their products.

Their report makes interesting reading. It’s called: This is what we die for: Human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo power the global trade in cobalt. The document traces the sale of cobalt, used in lithium-ion batteries, from mines where children as young as seven, and adults work in dangerous areas.

One of the conclusions of their report:
“It is a major paradox of the digital era that some of the world’s richest, most innovative companies are able to market incredibly sophisticated devices without being required to show where they source raw materials for their components”.

We spoke with Mark Dummet, Amnesty International's business and human rights researcher, for more on what Amnesty claims is going on.

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