![]() ![]() It is not credible for any company to assert that its own operations are fully insulated from ASM mining. They need both to accept their own share of responsibility for addressing the challenges and play a role in developing enforceable safety and labor standards. Based on her visit to the DRC in December, Baumann-Pauly makes several sensible recommendations about how global mining companies and relevant governments need to address the cobalt market.įirst, corporate buyers of cobalt should acknowledge that ASM is an integral component of cobalt mining in the DRC. Released this week and entitled, “ Cobalt Mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo: Addressing Root Causes of Human Rights Abuses,” the paper is co-published by the NYU Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, which I direct, and our sister organization, the Geneva Center for Business and Human Rights at the University of Geneva, which Baumann-Pauly heads. Industrial Global Union (August, 2019), Workers fear job losses at Glencore cobalt mine.The second, more prescriptive (and hopeful) publication is a white paper by my colleague Dorothée Baumann-Pauly. Peter Mugai (April, 2020), Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining in Africa, Geology for Investors. Retrieved from įrankel el al (September, 2016), The cobalt pipeline: Tracing the path from deadly hand-dug mines in Congo to consumers’ phones and laptop, The Washington Post. ![]() World Economic Forum (September, 2020), Making Mining Safe and Fair: Artisanal cobalt extraction in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Statista, Mine production of cobalt in DR Congo from 2008 to 2019. Shankar Besta (May 2019), The world’s biggest cobalt producing countries, NS Energy. Image credits: Michael Robinson Chavez via The Washington Post, Amnesty International and Afrewatch, and Industrial Global Union. Request a demo to see how MIMOSI Connect blockchain platform can improve your cobalt supply chain traceability. MIMOSI Connect is compatible with OECD guidance on responsible supply chains and industry initiatives such as the Fair Cobalt Alliance. MIMOSI Connect gives companies a trusted, immutable record of key transactions, documents, and metrics across their entire supply chain to support responsible supply chain management and due diligence. So how can we support the livelihoods of at-risk communities and ensure our devices are produced ethically and sustainably? This suggests roughly 15,000 - 30,000 metric tons of cobalt comes from artisanal mines that may be violating human rights. In 2019, DRC produced 100,000 metric tons of cobalt ( Statista). Children end up working at mines for a number of reasons: accompanying guardians no separation between working and living sites and providing income for their families. Children’s work varies from washing mineral rocks to heavy work underground. It is very difficult to obtain accurate numbers on child labourers, but in 2018, Harvard adjunct lecturer Siddharth Kara reported 35,000 child labourers at 31 artisanal mining sites in the DRC (World Economic Forum, 2020). According to the WEF, more than 2 million Congolese depend on artisanal mines for their livelihood and each miner supports up to five times as many people. How much do cobalt miners get paid? In a 2016 article by the Washington Post, miners made an average of US$2-$3 a day depending on how much cobalt they found. Miners wear plastic lamps strapped to their heads and no protective gear, placing them at increased risk for lung disease and other toxicity-related illness. Artisanal mines are usually worked by independent miners who use their own tools to extract cobalt from hand-dug, underground tunnels. ![]() According to the World Economic Forum, cobalt from artisanal and small-scale mines makes up approximately 15-30% of national Congolese cobalt production. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |