Amnesty International report: Children mine cobalt used in gadget batteries. Children as young as seven years old are working for up to $2 daily mining in dangerous conditions to gather cobalt used in lithium batteries for 16 multinational corporations like Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Sony, and others, according to Amnesty International. [Ars Technica]
Of course the article doesn’t mention that the average household income in the Democratic Republic of Congo is only $400 per year, meaning that the children mentioned in this report are making far above the average income for an entire household. No doubt this is why the article carefully avoids asking whether the children like those jobs or would prefer to be thrown out on the streets to starve to make a bunch of ignorant liberals in rich countries feel better about themselves.