Green activists, politicians and bureaucrats who promote wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles, claim those technologies are ‘green'.
They ignore African child labor being exploited to make electric cars run. Those black lives do not matter to them.
Cobalt is an expensive metal used in electric car batteries, costing about $35,000 per ton -- 59% of cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where mining is often done by children, called ‘informal’ workers. The mineral cobalt is used in virtually all batteries in common devices, including cellphones, laptops and even electric vehicles.
With no protective clothing, accidents were common. There is a culture of rape and violence. Girls fall victim to rape, which children are powerless to prevent. A report by Amnesty International revealed that cobalt mined by children was ending up in products from several companies, including Apple, Microsoft, Tesla and Samsung.
Women and children in the mines help with the "artisanal mining" -- children lug heavy sacks of cobalt to be washed in rivers. From as early as age four, they can pick it out of a pile. Children too young to work cling to their mothers and play on the dirty ground, breathing in toxic fumes.
International Rights Advocates has a lawsuit, on behalf of 14 Congolese families, whose children were killed or injured while mining for cobalt. The metal is key ingredient in the rechargeable lithium-ion batteries that power most electronic devices.
Defendants named in the suit include Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Tesla and Google’s parent company, Alphabet. The lawsuit accuses those companies of “knowingly benefiting from and aiding and abetting the cruel and brutal use of young children.”
