Children work in Congolese mines where cobalt is extracted for smartphones

Re:Children work in Congolese mines where cobalt is extracte... by davidreiss on Wednesday August 09, 2017 @10:49AM (#14969550)

It's a bit disingenuous to compare farm work to mining. I also grew up on a farm and helped my parents, uncles/aunts, grandparents on their farms. But I still went to school, did my homework, watched cartoons, etc.

Farm work isn't mining. Farm work isn't as toxic as mining. And I highly doubt these kids are getting an education.

> You don't solve child-labor by simply firing the children.

But that's what we did in the western world. In the US we simply passed laws making child factory/mining/etc labor illegal. Now we did this only because we were running out of jobs for adults and kicking out the kids opened up jobs for adults, but it's something that is doable at a government level.

Whether the government in congo is able to do that, whether the poverty level allows that and whether they have elementary schools to absorb unemployeed kids is another matter.

It's hard to defend child mining. It's not working on a family farm.

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Re:Children work in Congolese mines where cobalt is extracte... by JoeAltmaier on Saturday August 12, 2017 @10:38AM (#14998023)

But, reading the article, we learn that when children are fired from one job, they go work in a worse one for less pay. Its hard to defend disruption, especially of children, especially when they then starve or work harder.

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