Technology

The ethics of smartphones

While smartphones are making our lives easier, they may be violating the human rights of thousands of Congolese child cobalt miners.

13 August 2018

“I feel bad because my friends are going to school and I am struggling,” Ziki Swaze told the CBS news crew earlier this year. The 11-year-old from Kolwezi in the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is spending his days sifting through rocks and soil containing cobalt. This lustrous, silveryblue non-ferrous metal is used in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for smartphones, tablets, and laptops as well as electric vehicles and solar charging technology. The bulk of the DRC’s cobalt comes from the southern Lualaba and Haut-Katanga provinces, where it is extracted as a by-product of copper.

Whatever Swaze finds goes in large bags that sometimes weigh 20kg. The content is sold to middlemen who sell it on to mining houses in the region. The boy is paid $1 a day, maybe $2 if he is lucky – a fraction of the price of an out of warranty replacement of an iPhone 6 battery, which currently costs around R450. Swaze is doing this to support his grandmother, he says. “She has a bad leg. I am the one who looks after her. There is no one else who helps.”

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