Demand for electric vehicles is fuelling a rise in child labour in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, experts said.
Cobalt is a key component in batteries for electric cars, phones and laptops, and Congo provides more than half of global supply. The majority of Congo's cobalt comes from industrial mines, while about one fifth is mined informally, according to rights group Amnesty International.
Tens of thousands of children as young as six dig for the toxic substance in artisanal mines in the country's southeast, without protective clothing, rights groups say.
Rising demand in the last several years has already led to increases in cobalt production, drawing more people - including children - into the sector, said Siddharth Kara, an author on modern slavery who visited Congo this year.
"Based on what I saw on the ground, right now there is absolutely no way any company in the world could assure its consumers that the cobalt in its products is not tainted by child labour," Kara told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
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