I saw this article on reddit today and I thought it was interesting and relevant here…
Over half of the world’s supply of Cobalt, a primary element used in lithium batteries, is mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo by child miner.
Bad link..
I wondered if I messed it up via mobile. Here is round two:
https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/41vs1n/over_half_of_the_worlds_supply_of_cobalt_a/
I tested it this time and it opens. Thanks for the heads up!
The miners are actually minors, how sad! :_(
Yeap and many components in our savoured torches are made in factories paying their workers $3 a day.
The value in $ is irrelevant, what matters is the standard of living the salary gives them in their country, since housing and food will be much cheaper. Chinese factories can bring opportunities to Chinese workers, although some are by all accounts less than ideal (to put it diplomatically).
Subsistence wages or that lifestyle and working as soon as you’re able to has always been the way for the vast majority of humans, it’s nothing new. We’re just more aware of it these days than before. Most of us would be in a similar situation if our national economy fell apart and that has happened worldwide many times through history too. We are blessed that we can do better and we shouldn’t forget that.
Phil
I think if you look at many of the minerals coming out of parts of Africa and Asia you'll find issues like this. Parts of the world like the Congo don't have a Human Rights Act or health and safety at work law.
Sad, but a grim reality of that part of the world.
Why is it that some people think it’s appropriate to insist that someone else’s government force their children into unemployment? Do you really think they can just go get a “better” job
If you REALLY want to improve the “standard of living” of another country, how about you send them some of your own money? No, I don’t mean send Sally Struthers money!! I mean send a $100 bill (and maybe an Osmotic Water Filter or a water well ?) to ” Little Pepe ” personally.
Better yet, force your own country’s political class to establish favorable Trade relationships with the entire country, thereby creating those “better jobs” yourself; and watch the children (and their parents) truly thrive.
Hmmm???
Nah! Too much easier to sit back on ones own haunches & “demand” that someone else do the honorable work.
That’s extremely diplomatic. Are you in Chinese Parliament? $3 a day buys no body any standard of living in any country / situation. If the amount they are getting paid isn’t relevant, why did the cobalt article make a point of saying the workers there receive $2 a day ?
Answer ; because it is relevant.
We need to collectively decide we will no longer support slave labour, child labour or any sweat shop type exploitation anywhere in the world with our dollars. Unfortunately many people in first world countries not only support exploitation of “those” people, they look at the poor in their own country the same way, in America poverty is rampant, and untold numbers of people support the national party that believes in “tough love”, starve and exploit the poor until they stop being “lazy”
In America poverty means a pretty good lifestyle relative to other countries, just look at home ownership, TVs, car ownership, cable and internet, education and college, air conditioning and heating, indoor plumbing, phone service, taxpayer supplied income, quality of health care and food, infrastructure, the ability to start a small business (in some states), etc.
Just think where poverty in America would be if we weren’t importing tens millions of the world’s least educated in a never ending flow straight into our welfare system, and if we quit working so hard to drive people into poverty and to keep them there as a voter base to support more government, more immigration, more poverty, and more welfare.
Where would America be if the 1965 immigration Act had never been passed, and we had just worked on our nation’s own self improvement and betterment.