[Shivetya]

the liability is with the mining company and national government of Congo. the companies purchasing products can indeed put pressure on both to improve the working conditions of miners but in the end as with nearly every human tragedy, it comes down to the government to take responsibility for its actions and inaction. nothing changes until the local government has to change it.

[rubbingalcohol]

You literally want to place the blame solely on a third world country for the deaths and disease of all these child laborers when it's our first world addiction to their resources driving the injustice in the first place? Who is in a better economic standing to improve this situation?

Would you have no problem buying ivory, since it's the poacher who acted immorally, and you as the end consumer have no responsibility as to how it was supplied?

I don't throw this word around lightly, but what we are enabling in the Congo is evil, and all so we can drive expensive electric cars and pretend like we're making the world better. It's pathetic.

[vorpalhex]

The thing with Ivory is that it was the traders, not the producers, making the money. You can ruin trader profitability by not trading with them. You can't convince Congo to stop using a child labor force with no protections by making them more broke - they'll just retask the labor force into different labor. We've seen this with diamonds.

[pnako]

How is "addiction" to their resources driving injustices? I live in Australia, where we export plenty of minerals (including cobalt, incidentally). We don't have children working (and dying) in mines, AFAIK.

So clearly it's not an issue of cobalt, it's a problem within the Congo.

[zaroth]

[Edited]

[shkkmo]

> nothing changes until the local government has to change it.

Yes, the US government could pass laws and start fining companies that use child labor is their supply chain. You better bet that losing access to the world's largest consumer economy would force the mining companies to change their practices.

You can choose to absolve yourself of responsibility for the actions of these mining companies, but our collective purchasing choices definitely have a direct causal effect on these types of abuses.

> the liability is with the mining company and national government of Congo.

Asserting that liability can only rest with a single party is simple minded.

[WilliamEdward]

Ok but they definitely should put pressure on the government by not buying their unethical produce.

[gedy]

Challenge is "supply chain laundering" that obfuscates sources. Everything being made in China complicates the enforcement too.