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Apple Cracks Down Further On Cobalt Supplier in Congo as Child Labor Persists (washingtonpost.com)
Last year, a Washington Post investigation found several instances of miners -- including children -- labored in hazardous, even deadly, conditions at Congo's artisanal cobalt supply chain. Amnesty International and other human rights groups also have alleged problems. Earlier this week, British broadcaster Sky New published an investigation that alleged continued problems in the cobalt supply chain. The Washington Post now reports: Apple said it has temporarily stopped buying cobalt mined by hand in Congo while it continues to deal with problems with child labor and harsh work conditions. The Post connected this troubling trade to Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Company, a Chinese firm that is the largest buyer of artisanal cobalt in Congo and whose minerals are used in Apple products. Last year, Apple pledged to clean up its cobalt supply chain, but the tech giant said it wanted to avoid hurting the Congolese miners by cutting them off. Mining provides vital income for hundreds of thousands of people in one of the poorest countries in the world. Now, Apple says it has stopped -- for now -- buying cobalt from artisanal mines (Editor's note: the link could be paywalled; alternate source). "We have been working with Huayou on a program that will verify individual artisanal mines, according to our standards," Apple said in a statement, "and these mines will re-enter our supply chain when we are confident that the appropriate protections are in place."
is clearly the only solution. Add a space elevator for a few dollars more!
Never could stand hipsters and their fancy child-working artisanal mines.
"I was mining Cobalt before it was cool".
" I mine this thing called Cobalt, you probably haven't heard about it. It's the most important part of an iPhone".
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I think I've heard it all.
We pass the slavings on to you!
He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
By refusing to do business with this company, they've put the lives of hundreds of families in jeopordy. What do these idiots think these kids are going to do otherwise when most schools in the Congo only go to 2nd grade? Apple has needlessly harmed the potential for these poeple to help themselves!
Now the Congo cobalt is used for other phones and the other cobalt for iPhones. Everybody happy.
WARNING: Mined in a facility that may processes soy and tree nuts. May contain Cobalt.
I always knew that Apple was supposedly a premium brand, but artisanal cobalt? Does that go with their artisanal chips? Can I get an artisanal cucumber and water cress sandwich with that at the genius bar now, too?
That is all.
What's it for, anyway?
Lol.
Anyways, in real news - Apple is spying on you just like Google, suckers.
Force them out of the factories and you will force them into child prostitution and drug dealing. These children will work one way or another or they will not eat! Wish people would understand how the world really works!
red china loving
issi friend
tim cook needs to move stuff back to usa and give fbi the ios unlock key.
Organic Cobalt!
love is just extroverted narcissism
I read "Congo's artisanal cobalt supply chain" and thought of Princess Bride "You Keep Using That Word, I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means" - Inigo Montoya
Calvin:Do you believe in the devil? Hobbes:I'm not sure man needs the help.
If it's forced labor, absolutely. The children aren't profiting from it anyways.
But as is often in 3rd world countries, the child ends up working to feed themselves and their family. This isn't the US where there's welfare systems and safety nets.
They just die over there.
How bout they just buy the country?
Ostensibly, this uproar will cause Apple to force the mining companies to treat their child employees a little better.
In reality Apple just wants a paper/certificate/assurance that its policies are being enforced. So one more middle man will come in, sign the document Apple desires, and buy from the same mining companies. Now with one more middleman taking the cut, those children will be squeezed even harder.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
All of this goes back to the Belgian Prince treating the Congo as his personal slave state, literally chopping the hands off of small children and women to enforce slavery in his mines and rubber plantations.
We're just continuing the tradition.
Just like the South.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
"Artisinal mining"? O.o
artisanal cobalt
WTF is that? Are these people really skilled artisans akin to those making my $15 scones or $20/lb CheeseIts?
I thought this stuff was coming out of Africa, obviously their advertising company is based in SF.
And have installed Suicide nets, rather than improve conditions for the workers... They rather catch them as they leap to their attempted death, and avoid paying their families anything, as they work them to death in stead... ANYONE who buys/owns apple products CONDONES THIS DESPICABLE PRACTICE! There are FEW tech companies whose track record on human rights in the workplace while using the equivalent of SLAVE LABOR, is as poor as Apples. This Story is as deceptive as MOST of the liberal Bullsh|t coming out of this site lately. Sad Really. News for Nerds getting Awfully Political and Biased these Days... Hard NOT to notice.
I'm sorry, but doesn't this just qualify as an instance where you say "we will no longer do business with you under any circumstances ever again" applies? Apple is such a shitty company.
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
Is there a charity that goes to at-risk places like these mining villages and towns then pays the family to put their children into school?
Something Like:
But where I can directly 'employ' a child to go to school and get a report on how well they are doing, a transparency report on what portion of my money is making to the child vs overhead?
If there isn't I think there should be. Can you offer a family more money, food and opportunity to put their child into a small village school than the local miners or child laborers?
If so then you can effectively buy happiness for these kids. Or at least a shot at a childhood while raising the pay of miners who's "tiny slave labor" market now has to compete with the charity.
I think there's a missed marketing opportunity here for Apple. All they are doing is pulling their money away from a toxic situation like child labor which hurts their reputation with people who buy luxury electronics in various shades of grey and white. They could be touting how some of your money for your iThing is being spent on teaching children who would have instead slaved away to build your toy.
"You cannot have a General Will unless you have shared experiences. You cannot be fair to people you don't know."
The average income in Belgian Congo is about $385 / year. I'm going to guess that these kids don't make more than $200/year, or $17/month. I'd pay the $17/month to replace a kid's wages if they went to school.
The cost of education, books, pencils, etc, is about the same, about $17/month. So for $35/month you could pay the kid to go school and provide books, etc.
Figure a few more dollars for the reports, overhead, etc, call it $50/month to take a kid out of the dangerous mine and put them in school. I might talk to my pastor about this idea of replacing the lost wages ($17/month) so they can go to school.
Would you be interested in actually doing something like this?
It should have read: 'Apple's Cracked'.
Apple suppliers have stockpiled enough cobalt to cut the demand for a while and force prices down. Apple puts up a smoke screen to make it look like this is a Good Thing.
Everyone knows that Cobalt from kids is the best. Apple needs to recognize this.
You know damn well Apple won't let this affect their bottom line. As always: Fuck Apple.
This is how they were able to offer their phones so cheap.
Hillary said it best: "What difference does it make?"
It's not like these kids would otherwise be studying precalculus or something. In all likelihood they wood be thieving from the marketplace or diddling their sisters. No, I'm not kidding. That's what these people are like.
Folks in first world countries yapping on their iPhone don't realize that the people in these third world countries aren't likely to find anything better. These kids are in their prime earning years. In another year or two they will be dead of some tropical disease, or conscripted into the slaughter machine of one extremeist group or another.
Let these kids make money while they can.
They got caught.
Time to fire little Timmy.
What a freakshow.
Thanks for that information and analysis. Sounds like a difficult situation to improve. I started to say "fix", but probably at this point *improvement* is more realistic than "fixing" it.
On the other hand, people with less than a third-grade education are unlikely to solve the problems of violence and corruption. Ghandi was a lawyer, Martin Luther King had a PhD as well as two two bachelor's degrees.
Find or ony the cost of a cup of coffee a day, you can prevent a Oompa Loompa from falling into slavery.
Who gives a crap what happens in Congo?
Apple needs to increase child labor. The local stores around me cant keep these phones in stock, so obviously they have serious supply chain issues.