[hypertele-Xii]

So what happens to these millions of kids when you declare it illegal to pay them?

Are you going to feed them and build schools?

That's what the economy is doing, in exchange for cobalt.

How much money have you personally donated to the children of Congo?

[darth_avocado]

“If they weren’t slaves they would die of hunger” is a wrong way to look at the situation. A better way to talk about it would be “hey they are mining minerals that rest of the world literally depends on, why are we not paying them enough so that they can uplift themselves from poverty?”

[JumpCrisscross]

> why are we not paying them enough so that they can uplift themselves from poverty?

Short of credible threats of Western military intervention, I don’t see a solution.

We don’t employ those kids. Paying more just lines the pockets of middlemen and warlords. Absent a forced sociopolitical shift combined with a Marshall Plan-scale subsidy regime to elevate the country’s health, education and infrastructure, to make the change sustainable, those kids will be in a bad place.

[OscarCunningham]

Or we could let them immigrate.

[lordnacho]

Didn't that happen in industrialized countries? We made it illegal for kids to work in the mines, and we forced them all to go to school? Whatever happened to those kids?

[OscarCunningham]

They only made it illegal after the point where most families didn't need it.

[throw_m239339]

> They only made it illegal after the point where most families didn't need it.

No, they made it illegal when workers rebelled against the most egregious form of exploitation. Wealthy factory or mine owners didn't grant worker's right out of good will, they were forced to do so because workers paid the price of blood to gain their rights.

[OscarCunningham]

I don't see what the employers have to do with it. Slavery was illegal before child labour, so the decision for children to work lay with their parents/guardians.

[throw_m239339]

> I don't see what the employers have to do with it. Slavery was illegal before child labour, so the decision for children to work lay with their parents/guardians.

And shooting workers was also illegal yet "employers" did exactly that when workers started to strike.

[hypertele-Xii]

They exploited their kids in other ways. My dad, for example, forced me by physical violence to carry bricks all summer building his house, while other kids were enjoying their summer break from school.