African Children Are Being Exploited in The Congo

The next time you walk into the room and notice your child playing video games take note. The next time Christmas rolls around and your child ask for a Madden 2009; it should give you room for pause. Are perhaps your son or daughter would like a blackberry or an AT&T I-Phone. Simple request that perhaps you could easily fulfill. After all the glitter of TV commercials, showing the kids text messaging in a language only they know, can be appealing and down right funny. Our frivolity in America cannot be rivaled. There certainly is a price to pay for the cell phones.

I’m not writing about going over your anytime minutes. Or being charged extra for exceeding your text messaging limit. I’m not even talking about the $50 dollars or so that you pay to EA Sports for the latest video game. No, it’s a higher price than that. It is the price you pay for subsidizing a little known industry that is flourishing in the Congo. An industry that exploits tens of thousand of children to work in the mines, for as little as 20 cents per day, if they are lucky. The children are mining for coltan. No it’s not the latest drug. But the addiction is staggering and many come under its spell, for the lure of quick riches and no price for production; the labor is cheap and its nearly free.

Half way around the world a price is being paid, children or suffering. Children or dying, because our children and children around the world are obsessed with Video games and everyone; adults and child alike are obsessed with cell phones and every other electronic toy. Yes, it is not just an American obsession it is a world wide one and it has fueled a very lucrative industry in the Congo. The mining of coltan, a heat resistant mineral ore, widely used in cellular phones, laptops, computers, and video games. It is a booming industry. You get the picture; the dollars are staggering, because-everyone uses at least one of these electronic toys. You’re probably on your computer right not, perhaps the Internet. Yes that wonderful toy can do just about anything including deliver this story at the expense of some over worked, undernourished, child in the Congo.

The Congo holds 80% of the world reserves of coltan, a heat resistant mineral ore. Selling for over $400 per pound. What a profit they make and it not getting any better because countries around the world have insatiable appetite for electronic toys.

Who should take a stand against this gross and unjust exploitation of children? It’s not just one country. It countries around the world. It all the individual people who use cell phones, laptops, video games. It should be quite a collective effort to police the atrocity. We all share in it. I’m using a laptop to write this article. If the object of this exploitation, my laptop, can help bring to light this hideous activity, then the writing of this article will not be in vain. And so, we all are responsible and we all should take a stand.

This one is not limited to the United States, every country is responsible. It clearly a United Nations problem and it is a complicated one. Considering this is taking place within the confines of the Congo, it is very difficult to get internal cooperation, when the government, police and civil authorities are all corrupt and under the take. The most effective means to combat this issue would be to impose sanctions against the countries and to have manufacturers to be more cognizant and careful with whom they choose to do business with.

So the next time you place a call on your cell phone or buy a video game for your child, take a moment to think about the plight of children who work the mines. They make it possible for your and I to enjoy our high tech toys.