Global Blueprint: Extraction Goes Global · Episode 5 of 5 · 51 min
A Child's Hand in a Clean Battery: The Human Cost of Congo's Cobalt
The Congo has long been where the world goes to dig up what it needs next: copper and uranium under Belgian rule, and cobalt and coltan today. The episode traces the arc from the colonial mining giant Union Minière to modern Western and Chinese operators, and describes hand-dug cobalt, including by children, and militias financing war from mine sites.
Where it happens
- Katanga, Democratic Republic of the CongoCopper, cobalt and uranium region once run by Union Minière
- Shinkolobwe, Democratic Republic of the CongoUranium mine that supplied the first atomic bombs
- Eastern Congo (the Kivus)Area where armed groups control mine sites
Timeline
- 1906Union Minière du Haut-Katanga founded
- 1996-2003Congo Wars; armed groups fund themselves with minerals
- 2009Minerals-for-infrastructure deal anchors China's role in Congolese mining
- 2010Dodd-Frank Section 1502 mandates conflict-minerals disclosure
- 2016Amnesty International documents child labor in cobalt mining
Still debated
Child-labor figures are widely cited but hard to verify, and observers dispute whether conflict-minerals regulation worked. Relative Western and Chinese responsibility is contested, and eastern violence has ethnic, land and regional causes beyond minerals.