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Gabe L

Statistics | Congo, Democratic Republic of the | UNICEF - 1 views

  • Youth (15-24 years) literacy rate (%) 2008-2012*, male78.9
  • Youth (15-24 years) literacy rate (%) 2008-2012*, female53.3
  • Pre-primary school participation, Gross enrolment ratio (%) 2008 -2012*, male3.6
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • Pre-primary school participation, Gross enrolment ratio (%) 2008 -2012*, female3.8
  • Primary school participation, Gross enrolment ratio (%) 2008-2012*, male102.9
  • Primary school participation, Gross enrolment ratio (%) 2008-2012*, female89
  • Primary school participation, Net attendance ratio (%) 2008-2012*, male77.5
  • Primary school participation, Net attendance ratio (%) 2008-2012*, female72.1
  • Secondary school participation, Net attendance ratio (%) 2008-2012*, male35.1
  • Secondary school participation, Net attendance ratio (%) 2008-2012*, female28.3
Kamryn T

Plight of African child slaves forced into mines - for our mobile phones | Internationa... - 1 views

  • African children are enslaved in lethal mines to power our love affair with the mobile phon
  • The child miners of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) risk death to dig for a highly dangerous ore used in mobiles, laptops and games consoles.
  • Coltan smuggling is big business throughout Africa and is a major source of income for warring militias
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • The valuable ore is sold for £300 a kilo but the young slaves risking death to mine it get just £1.50 a week.
  • s also blamed for birth defects in the areaswhere it is mined.
    • Kamryn T
       
      Do Pregnant Women have to mine for cobalt as well that leads to the birth defects?
  • They die because the military abuse and murder them to hush their crimes."
  • "Children are essential to the process because they can get into smaller holes dug in the river beds."
  • 5000 and 6000 child slaves are forced to work in the mines.
  • "I wonder how many times someone looks at their laptop or their cell phone and thinks, 'there is coltan mined by children in this product'.
    • Kamryn T
       
      This really makes you think about how important cobalt is.
  • "The end users - the phone and computer companies - say they don't take anything from Congo but there are ways around that for the militia and the people selling it.
  • Over 80 per cent of all coltan is mined from DRC, one of the world's poorest countries.
    • Kamryn T
       
      if its is so poor than why did the article originally say that cobalt is one of the main exports?    -does the DRC get the money that they make from the cobalt?
  • More than four million children in Congo are not in school and a third of those under the age of five are underweight. Life expectancy is only 44 years and 80 per cent of the population lives on less than a dollar a day. The discovery of such a valuable resouce has led neighbouring states to plunder coltan from within Congo's borders.
    • Kamryn T
       
      BLUE HIGHLIGHT: STATISTICS
  • Their soldiers stole it from Congo by forcing women and children to mine it.
  • Coltan's journey from Congo to your mobile is a complicated one involving militias, arms dealers and finally big business in the west.
    • Kamryn T
       
      PEOPLE GO THROUGH ALOT TO MAKE PHONES
  • Compaq, Dell, IBM, Nokia and Siemens.
    • Kamryn T
       
      STATISTICS
Kamryn T

Apple: time to make a conflict-free iPhone | Delly Mawazo Sesete | Technology | The Gua... - 0 views

  • deadly conflict has been raging for over 15 years.
    • Kamryn T
       
      If this had been a conflict for such a while know why are people just now acting on it?
  • These minerals are part of your daily life.
  • They keep your computer running so you can surf the internet. They save your high score on your Playstation. They make your cell phone vibrate when someone calls you.
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  • While minerals from the Congo have enriched your life, they have often brought violence, rape and instability to my home country
  • I witnessed the deadly chemicals dumped into the local environment. I saw the use of rape as a weapon. And despite receiving multiple death threats for my work, I've continued to call for peace, development and dignity in Congo's minerals trade.
  • . Apple has been an industry leader in both supply chain management and making corporate social responsibility a priority.
    • Kamryn T
       
      Does apple know that they are buying cobalt mined from child slaves?
  • irst company to create a Congo conflict-free phone, using minerals from Congo that further stability and economic development and don't use slave labor or fund mass atrocities.
Gabe L

Child labor: Children reveal horror of working in mines | World Vision - 1 views

  • 215 million child laborers in the world,
  • 115 million work in especially hazardous conditions
  • one of the most hazardous forms of child laborExternal Link: working in mines
  • ...14 more annotations...
  • 19 percent said they had seen a child die on an artisanal mining site
  • 87 percent experienced body pain, and many had been injured
  • 67 percent reported frequent or persistent coughing
  • Several girls had had genital infections after working waist-deep in acidic water
  • “Since working here, I have problems with my skin, body pains, and pain in my eyes,” said Jean, an 8-year-old
  • can permanently damage a growing child’s bones and muscles
  • exposure to uranium and mercury can have profound health effects
  • Falling down open mine shafts, being trapped or injured by collapsing tunnels, or drowning while mining underwater are all serious threats
  • Children absorb and retain heavy metals in the brain more easily.
  • Children’s enzyme systems are still developing so they are less able to detoxify hazardous substances.
  • Children breathe faster and more deeply, so they can inhale more airborne pathogens and dusts.
  • Children dehydrate more easily due to their larger skin surface and because of their faster breathing.
  • “This is not a childhood, with no time to play, rest or go on holiday with family,”
  • we believe we are just scratching the surface of the real issues
  •  
    "child labor" cobalt mining
Jane M

Child miners face death for tech - The CNN Freedom Project: Ending Modern-Day Slavery -... - 0 views

  • 07:51 PM ET Share this on: Facebook Twitter Digg del.icio.us reddit MySpace StumbleUpon Child miners face death for tech
  • Roger-Claude Liwanga is a human rights lawyer from the Congo and visiting scholar at Boston University
  • “Children of the Mines,” which will be launched shortly in Boston
  • ...28 more annotations...
  • The Numbers
    • Jane M
       
      Primary source
  • 40 percent of them are children.
  • Six months ago, I met a boy I will call Lukoji in the mine washing site of Dilala near the DRC’s Kolwezi city.
  • children in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) were hard at work in the country’s artisanal mines.
  • Seventy-five percent of children surveyed in the DRC’s artisanal mines are dropouts
  • 12 and 13
    • Jane M
       
      Mining prevents education
  • Kolwezi, Likasi and Lubumbashi,
  • The children’s earnings range from $0.75 to $3 a day, which they use to buy food, clothes and shoes, or towards school fees.
    • Jane M
       
      underpaid
  • bare hands and feet to dig, sift, wash and lift heavy loads of minerals. These tasks expose them to high probabilities of being injured or killed.
  • “I began working in the mines when I was five”.
  • The work conditions in the artisanal mines are
    • Jane M
       
      biased source
  • get killed in soil collapses
  • province of Katanga alone is about 6.6 per month
  • 20 percent said that at least one of their family members or friends had died in the mine in the last three years.
  • inhumane.
    • Jane M
       
      leads to other problems (health)
  • life-time disabilities.
  • who told me that he walks with a limp because a big stone fell on his right leg and broke it while he was extracting minerals five years ago.
  • Mining work is prohibited by the Congolese Labor Code for children under 18. Despite the legal prohibition, there are few initiatives to prevent children from working in the mines, and there are almost no prosecutions against those who employ children or buy minerals coming from child labor.
  • coltan, cobalt, and copper, among others
  • has 64% of the world’s reserves,
  • obalt is used to produce rechargeable batteries for hybrid electric vehicles, laptops and cell phones.
  • He innocently pointed his index finger towards the mining depots located around the mines and owned principally by the Chinese.
  • Congo to Asia for refining.
Jane M

How the iPhone Helps Perpetuate Modern-Day Slavery | C. Robert Gibson - 0 views

    • Jane M
       
      Companies that use slave tainted cobalt: Apple HP Samsung
  • The iPhone 6 is coming out soon. But you don't need one
  • enabling their abuse of workers
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • HP laptop I'm using to write this article was made in the same way
  • Samsung smartphone I used to tweet this article after it was published
  • Apple is the most glaring exampl
  • , seven million people have died in a civil war that continues to plague the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
    • Jane M
       
      child labor coltan from DRC is then sent to child labor factories in China.
  • children as young as 13 are forced to work in the mines for as little as 2 dollars a da
  • carry a store-bought, battery-powered flashlight, and often die from brutal working conditions that result in suffocation, cave-ins, and death from sheer exhaustion
    • Jane M
       
      Dell uses coltan from DRC too
  • Apple, Samsung, Dell, and HP
  • 80 percent of the world's coltan supply comes from the region
  • DRC to mine columbite and tantalum, which together can form coltan, a necessary ingredient in modern laptops and smartphones.
  • raw materials mined in Congo are then sent to factories in China
  • "labor camp,"
  • Seventeen workers attempted suicide, and 14 died jumping from the roof of the building in 2010
  • forced employees to sign agreements stating that their employer would be exempt from lawsuits brought by family members in the event of their suicide
  • 298 per month
  • decision will ultimately be up to us, the buyers.
  • mined by underpaid and overworked Congolese teenagers
  • assembled by underpaid and overworked Chinese teenagers
  • willing to buy shiny new gadgets for a little more if they knew they were made sustainably.
  • pay raises never came.
  • How the iPhone Helps P
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