Major electronics and automobile brands have not been doing basic checks to ensure that their products do not include cobalt mined by children, criticized Amnesty International and African Resources Watch (Afrewatch) in a report published on 19 January 2016 entitled, This is what we die for: Human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo power the global trade in cobalt, which traces the pathway of this mineral that is extracted from mines in the south-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) where many children work in perilous conditions (health risks, risks of accidents and violence). Almost 50% of global cobalt production comes from the DRC. Cobalt is used in the manufacture of lithium-ion batteries.
According to the report, traders buy the cobalt extracted from the Katanga province, a high-tension zone where child labor is commonplace. They sell the cobalt on to Congo Dongfang Mining (CDM), one of the largest mining companies in the country and a wholly owned subsidiary of Chinese mineral giant Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt Ltd (Huayou Cobalt). The cobalt is processed before being sold on to three battery component manufacturers in China (Ningbo Shanshan and Tianjin Bamo) and South Korea (L&F Mat
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