Cell phone batteries and batteries for electric cars contain cobalt.
Cobalt comes to about 55% from the Congo, one of the poorest countries in the world. The cobalt for Apple comes entirely from the Congo.The people who work there are extremely exploited and live a horror life.
And it is estimated that about 40,000 children work in these mines.
Dorson is eight years old and he works 12 hours a day in the mine.
Despite the long hour, he has no shoes and hardly any food.
The man next to him threatens him with beatings if he does not work faster.
Everyone here has terrible working conditions.
Children and adults work in the pouring rain, in ankle-deep mud, in this cobalt mine that supplies cobalt for Apple.
Dorsen was spotted by a Sky News team filming a documentary about the use of child labor in cobalt mines
The cobalt sacks are carried through the mine by children, and Dorsen was not fast enough with his sack when Sky's cameras were rolling.
When Dorsen has filled the sack, the adult workers who control him put the sack on his head so he can carry it away.
It is a terrible job.
Children sift the mined rock with their bare hands.
They select the stones with the highest cobalt content and sort them into bags.
Dorsen was not the youngest child in his mine. Sky also found this girl, who is 4 years old.
The wastewater from the mines poisons the drinking water in the area.
The cobalt is taken to open-air markets where Chinese middlemen give the locals some money for it.
According to the Washington Post, the cobalt is then traded through a chain of Chinese suppliers until it reaches Apple, Samsung and all the other phone makers.
This opaque chain is why no single phone manufacturer can be directly linked to a Congolese cobalt mine.
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