A look inside the cobalt pipeline: the path from mines in Congo to electronic devices’ batteries.

The Washington Post recently published an in-depth article about cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Video footage shot inside a cobalt mine shows the desperate circumstances faced by workers in the underground tunnels. They also found that children are involved on a large scale in the cleaning of cobalt ores. The route of the cobalt is subsequently traced, revealing its importance for Asia’s electronics industries.

Read the article here. GoodElectronics has been working together with SOMO to reveal the malpractices in the supply chain of cobalt. An overview of the issues that have been identified is available here.