Apple, Google, Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla are being sued for their alleged role in labor and human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Fourteen families of children who worked for cobalt mining companies in the African republic have alleged that their children were illegally employed under extremely dangerous conditions and that the U.S. tech giants profited from this labor. In some cases, the complaint states, the children died or were seriously and permanently injured due to the dangerous conditions in the mines.
The complaint filed in the U.S. federal district court in Washington D.C. alleges that the companies aided and abetted forced labor, and seeks compensatory damages. The families seek additional damages for unjust enrichment, negligent supervision, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress arising out of the children's work in the cobalt mining industry.
Cobalt is a mineral that is used to create lithium batteries, which are used in many portable electronic devices. As the demand for handheld technology has proliferated, the demand for cobalt to help power these devices has grown enormously. Much of the world’s supply of cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, a country with a high rate of poverty and political instability and minimal oversight of corporate activity. To learn more about the cobalt industry in the DRC, read our report here.
