Big tech companies are off the hook when it comes to buying cobalt mined by child labour in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). An American appeals court said they could not be held liable for children forced to work in terrible conditions. And that means Google, Apple, Microsoft, Dell and Tesla are free to keep buying the metal with no regard for shocking exploitation. The case had been brought by representatives of children who’d been killed in DRC’s mines.
It’s happening as the country suffers an endless conflict. Since 1994 more than six million people have been killed and seven million displaced in what has been called ‘Africa’s World War’. Today, 120 armed groups operate in the country, driven by a desire to control resources worth $24-trillion. It’s argued Western firms’ thirst for DRC’s resources indirectly funds rebels who in turn use child labour to mine in-demand metals like cobalt. Congolese in the east of the country are locked in a vicious cycle of poverty and violence while big tech survive and thrive.
It’s also worth remembering it’s US interference that’s responsible for the state of affairs. Coming off a brutal decades-long colonial occupation from Belgium, and eager to utilise the vast resources to develop Africa, DRC was shot in the knee with the assassination of visionary Pan-African leader Patrice Lumumba, but that wasn’t enough. The US installed a puppet that bled the country for the next three decades. The West served as a loot stash and while millions lived in poverty, President Mobutu Sese Seko held millions in foreign banks, with properties spread across Europe.
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There are also major corporations mining irresponsibly in DRC’s southeastern provinces. I think that three of them comprise what once was Katanga Province.