![]() ![]() One of the central allegations in the lawsuit is that Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla were aware and had “specific knowledge” that the cobalt they use in their products is linked to child labour performed in hazardous conditions, and were complicit in the forced labour of the children. The families say that none were paid any compensation for the deaths and injuries. Other families included in the claim say that their children were killed in tunnel collapses or suffered serious injuries such as smashed limbs and broken spines while crawling through tunnels or carrying heavy loads. He is now paralysed from the chest down and will never walk again. After he was dragged out of the tunnel by fellow workers, he says he was left alone on the ground at the mining site until his parents heard about the accident and arrived to help him. The lawsuit claims that earlier this year, he was working as a human mule for Kamoto Copper Company, carrying bags of cobalt rocks for $0.75 a day, when he fell into a tunnel. The families claim that some of the children were killed in tunnel collapses while others were paralysed or suffered life-changing injuries from accidents.Īnother child, referred to as John Doe 1, says that he started working in the mines when he was nine. In the court documents, the Congolese families describe how their children were driven by extreme poverty to seek work in large mining sites, where they claim they were paid as little as $2 (£1.50) a day for backbreaking and dangerous work digging for cobalt rocks with primitive tools in dark, underground tunnels. Other plaintiffs in the court documents say they worked at mines owned by Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt, a major Chinese cobalt firm, which the lawsuit claims supplies Apple, Dell, and Microsoft and is likely to supply the other defendants. The court papers allege that cobalt from the Glencore-owned mines is sold to Umicore, a Brussels-based metal and mining trader, which then sells battery-grade cobalt to Apple, Google, Tesla, Microsoft and Dell. The families argue in the claim that their children were working illegally at mines owned by UK mining company Glencore. The lawsuit argues that Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft and Tesla all aided and abetted the mining companies that profited from the labour of children who were forced to work in dangerous conditions – conditions that ultimately led to death and serious injury. The extraction of cobalt from DRC has been linked to human rights abuses, corruption, environmental destruction and child labour. Image courtesy of CNES/Airbus DS, produced by Earthrise. The pink tarps cover tunnels used for mining. By May 2019, Congo DongFang International Mining (a subsidiary of chinese company Huayou Cobalt) have built a mining site, with a walled perimeter and processing buildings (in blue). In the first picture, taken May 2016, there are just residential houses. Aerial view of the Kasulo neighborhood of Kolwezi. A sliding image comparing an aerial view of a mine in the Kasulo neighborhood of Kolwezi in May 2016 to May 2019. ![]()
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