The Battery Genocide
The world's desire for batteries has risked the lives of children and adults alike. With death as their certainty, these artisanal miners venture for livelihood at the cost of their lives.
Never did it occur even to the best among us that a simple household purchase could fuel genocide and civil wars in distant lands.
Let’s start from the past, in the beginning, man had the need to possess an efficient method of transportation. He who controlled the sea and land trade routes controlled the world. There was the land silk route and another silk route on the seas. To control these areas there was a need to find increasingly efficient modes of transportation as the years passed by. Ships connected the seas and oceans, then railways connected the lands, but man was never content with faster ships and land travel!
Man wanted more, faster and faster travel, airplanes cam into being around 1903.1 But that wasn’t enough, in 1952 the De Havilland Comet started the jet age as the first commercial jet liner in the world to come into service, it was operated by the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC)2 the precursor to what we now know as the British Airways.3
Transportation, as fast as it can get, takes up valuable time, how does one get all that he needs from another land that is far away but from the comfort of his own home or office or in other words without having to go the distant land itself? This was enabled by the world wide web (WWW) and the introduction of the broadband, then sometime later fibre optics allowed for unprecedented net throughput rates.
Though we call it internet, but internet was not available to the masses before the advent of WWW. As time passed on WWW reached more and more people, it became astonishingly accessible and cheap, no longer requiring computers to use, bear in mind that computers in the 90s were items of luxury and not necessity. Nowadays however, everyone seems to have a smartphone with an internet connection, gone are the days when mobile internet was for the rich and famous.
Smartphones paired with the internet have become an integral part of our lives. This is where things begin to change for the worse. Every smartphone, or at least a functioning one, has a battery, and chances are, if you own a working smartphone the battery uses minerals, namely cobalt mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Why? Because 75% of the cobalt produced in the world is mined in the DRC.4
As a matter of fact, DRC is rich in copper, diamonds, uranium, coltan, oil among others.5 Little known fact is that the uranium used as nuclear fissile material in the bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were mined in Congo.6,7This is reflective of the reality that mining activities in the DRC have been going on for a very long time.
Rationally, anyone would supposed that all this time which is about 80 years, and these minerals that are present would make the DRC among the richest nations in the world. All in all, that is not the case, and truth of the matter is that the DRC is nowhere near being among the richest nations on earth.
The gross domestic product (GDP) at purchasing power parity (PPP) of DRC is ranked 91 by the CIA World Factbook.8 The aforementioned information should provide a glimpse into the state of the DRC. This raises one pertinent question. How does a country having such a diversity of valuable resources ends up becoming so poor?
Enter the cold war, when a tyrant came into power either by incident or by design and the Western world chose to turn a blind eye.9 Mobutu Sese Seko was a supporter of the West during the cold war, this means a free pass to do anything.10 This foreign policy adopted by the West was to ensure that the leaders of nations of interest were always in support of the West, regardless of its cost to the people.11,12
Since 1965, the DRC, has changed its name to Zaire and then back to the current DRC, a new leadership came to “light” under the helm of Laurent-Désiré Kabila through a coup d’état in 1997.13 This did not alter the status of the citizens of DRC, foreign interests and corrupt leadership have bled the DRC into a vicious cycle of poverty and death.14,15
Corruption of government officials imposing informal “taxes” on local economic activity therefore hindering participation from the populace resulting in low tax revenues for the government.16 This makes it difficult for the government to operate in the manner required especially in terms of issues pertaining to law, education, industrialisation and enforcement among others.
A lack of funding and a functioning government results in modern slavery, which includes child labour in mines controlled by militias.17 The militias have little concern over the safety and welfare of their subjects, resulting in unreported deaths, injuries and human rights abuses.18,19,20
Sadly this genocide of sorts goes unnoticed by many, it has to date taken the lives of more than a million people.21 In 2019 Apple, Microsoft, Tesla, Dell and Google were sued for their involvement in the death or injuries of child miners.22,23 However, in early March this year the case was thrown out, citing a failure to fulfil the legal elements required.24 Perhaps the court needs more proof of loss of life than mere news or media coverage.
Had the mine been in anywhere in the West, the treatment towards these people namely the miners would have been different, the mining methods would have been different, the safety gear, the insurance policies, the safety of the mine itself would have been better or in an alternate world, the mine would have never existed due to the dangers it possess to the environment and those involved in the mining process.
African lives seem to matter little when it comes to profiteering, apparently for those who run the Western hegemonic enterprise it is better to profit off the misery of others than to alleviate the misery per se.
Efforts are being taken, but they are too little too late, more needs to be done, and companies need to source their materials
responsibly rather than merely focusing on cost reduction i.e. profiteering.
Perhaps the West is only now making efforts to tackle the issue because of heavy Chinese involvement in the arena. The situation in DRC has been the way it is since the 60s, no one cared, because a Western ally was needed in a resource rich nation. Rare is the case where the West comes to aid with sincerity without expecting anything in return. There is always a catch and the bill comes due.
1903 Wright Flyer. (n.d.). National Air and Space Museum. https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/1903-wright-flyer/nasm_A19610048000#:~:text=Brief%20Description,with%20Orville%20at%20the%20controls.
De Havilland DH106 Comet 1 & 2. (n.d.). BAE Systems | International. https://www.baesystems.com/en/heritage/de-havilland-comet-1---2
Explore our past | Information | British Airways. (n.d.). https://www.britishairways.com/content/en/information/about-ba/history-and-heritage/explore-our-past
The dangers of cobalt mining in the Congo. (2023, February 16). News. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/the-dangers-of-cobalt-mining-in-the-congo/
Ibid.
Anderson, P. (2023, March 1). Cobalt and Corruption: The Influence of Multinational Firms and Foreign States on the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Journal for Global Business and Community, 14(1). https://doi.org/10.56020/001c.72664
Henson, A. (2022, October 12). Neocolonialism: Cobalt Mining in DRC. Michigan State International Law Review. https://www.msuilr.org/new-blog/2022/10/12/neocolonialism-cobalt-mining-in-democratic-republic-of-the-congo
Congo, Democratic Republic of the - The World Factbook. (n.d.). https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/congo-democratic-republic-of-the/#economy
Op cit.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Anderson, 2023
Ibid.
Ibid..
Henson, 2022
Op cit.
The dangers of cobalt mining in the Congo. (2023, February 16). News. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/the-dangers-of-cobalt-mining-in-the-congo/
Boyle, L. (2023, February 23). Cobalt mining for Big Tech is driving child labor, deaths in the Congo. The Independent. https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/phone-electric-vehicle-congo-cobalt-mine-b2277665.html
Gerding, J. (2024, March 19). DRC: Transparency issues in cobalt mining. dw.com. https://www.dw.com/en/drc-why-its-hard-to-make-cobalt-mining-more-transparent/a-68610784
Niarchos, N. (2021, May 24). The Dark Side of Congo’s Cobalt Rush. The New Yorker. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/the-dark-side-of-congos-cobalt-rush
Wilson, J. (2023, March 15). Entertainment Industry Becomes More Vocal About The Cobalt Situation In The Congo. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshwilson/2023/03/15/entertainment-industry-becomes-more-vocal-about-the-cobalt-situation-in-the-congo/?sh=339f4dbaddf3
Niarchos, 2021
Winsor, M. (2019, December 20). Apple, Google, Microsoft, Dell, Tesla sued over deaths of child miners. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/International/apple-google-microsoft-dell-tesla-named-lawsuit-deaths/story?id=67795965
Cole. (2024, March 5). Federal appeals court throws out lawsuit against Apple, Google, Tesla and other tech giants over alleged child labor in Congo. CNN. Retrieved March 20, 2024, from https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/05/tech/big-tech-child-labor-congo-lawsuit