Child miners aged four living a hell on Earth so YOU can drive an electric car: (trun)

Picking through a mountain of huge rocks with his tiny bare hands, the exhausted little boy makes a pitiful sight.

His name is Dorsen and he is one of an army of children, some just four years old, working in the vast polluted mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where toxic red dust burns their eyes, and they run the risk of skin disease and a deadly lung condition. Here, for a wage of just 8p a day, the children are made to check the rocks for the tell-tale chocolate-brown streaks of cobalt – the prized ingredient essential for the batteries that power electric cars.

And it’s feared that thousands more children could be about to be dragged into this hellish daily existence – after the historic pledge made by Britain to ban the sale of petrol and diesel cars from 2040 and switch to electric vehicles.

As everyone on this thread can read for themselves, if you go back and read what I have said, I have never once, at all, brought up the name Tesla, until this sentence.

I will try to spell in out in more detail.

Nothing personal from me —

Having worked with multiple sof teams, and from various AFRICOM fobs, collectively we have all seen with our own eyes, really bad forced child slave labor in nearly every country in Africa. It is a reality.

In reality, most governments and societies don’t really have the ability to control, police, or fight with terrorist organizations, bad NGO’s, or possibly the worst, militarized Chinese mineral and energy extraction.

Congo is one of the the top five worst countries in Africa for forced child slave labor use in the export of minerals. By far, the worst abuser is China. One of China’s most sought after exports from the Continent of Africa, and from the Congo region specifically, is rare Earth’s. Cobalt is only one of many minerals involved.

It is a reality, children are used in many of these mining operations.

Are there mines in Africa, and specifically the Congo region which do not use child slave labor, I don’t know. But I would guess probably, if the mining company is really self monitoring/policing with external observers.

The truth is, local government leaders typically get a monetary percentage, or some kind of infrastructure promise, in exchange for what they can produce and export for China. So as is often the case, children become expendable, as are other age groups.

Its not knew, but it tears your heart out.

As was often the case, we are in civy’s, and we were far from any wire, and I once had a beautiful little girl, very dirty, probably about the age of four, run barefoot and mostly no covering/clothes, from exactly such a “working area”. She grabbed my hand with both of her hands while crying, and with a soft voice, begged for me not to go, and please could K help her and her sister. From some of probable 6-12 year olds, we learned they had not seen their families in months, and did not know where they were.

We had “taken control” of the immediate area, but had no idea where these children came from. And there were many. Conditions were horrific, with some children’s bodies nearby. All basically starving. And they were working in trenches with water, as it had rained. They were digging a particular type of mineral rich clay.

As I tried but failed to communicate in my first response, which was not an attack at all, on anyone, or any particular company, this stuff really bad, and is pervasive.

I will say, they are not alone at all, but if there is Chinese sourcing from Africa, the Chinese are egregously guilty of African child slave labor, and slave labor in general, from many locations. They really have no concern for life over there.

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