A summary of the topic “Child labor, batteries, electric cars”:
Trendy web articles write about child labor in the Congo and the mining of cobalt. The articles leave out the fact that cobalt is not only used for electric cars, but also for batteries in general. The content serves political goals.
One argument used by opponents of electric cars is child labor. It describes that children are used as workers to extract raw materials for electric cars.
The arguments are often supported by strong framing. For example, you read about articles with headlines like “These children are experiencing hell on earth so that green people can drive an electric car” ( see archived version ).
The language used in it “Child miners aged four experience hell on earth so that left-green climate fanatics can drive an electric car.” It is written by climate fanatics and builds a bridge between child labor in Congo and political parties in Germany.
The fact check: electric cars, cobalt and child labor
Cobalt as a transition metal is actually an important component in the production of batteries. Accordingly also for batteries that are used, among other things, for electric cars.
In July 2019, Deutschlandfunk reported on the problem of cobalt and child labor in the Congo, in the article “The high price for electric cars and smartphones” (here):
Manufacturers need cobalt to produce batteries for smartphones, tablets and, more recently, electric cars. In the Congo, the raw material is mined under catastrophic conditions - often by children.
Other media have also already dealt with the topic, without any aggressive or tendentious framing. The Handelsblatt, for example, published an article entitled “Child labor in mines: fewer electric cars are not a solution either” (here). It tells you that fewer electric cars do not reduce or solve the problem of child labor, since child labor is only part of the problem. Minors there work mainly in small-scale mining in mines, some of which are operated illegally.
Batteries! Not just electric cars.
What the gimmicky articles against electric cars fail to mention: Cobalt mining is not just about electric cars, but about batteries in general. You have to keep in mind that this is also about smartphones, notebooks or digital cameras, and not least about the comfortable vacuum robot that drives through your apartment.
Building the bridge purely to electric cars is therefore tendentious and one-sided and only serves as a tool for a political agenda. The automobile manufacturers are of course aware of the problem and are making efforts to obtain so-called clean cobalt. You read in the Deutschlandfunk article:
“Recently there is a big debate about so-called clean cobalt, that is, cobalt that has been produced ethically. Especially without child labor, that’s a really big issue.”
Nevertheless, it is of course possible, as an article in WELT describes , that cobalt, which was mined through child labor, also ends up in the batteries of electric cars.
Political discussion
The entire narrative of child labor for electric cars, ignoring all other uses, is of course a politically charged discussion. In our article “Fact check: child labor “so YOU can drive an electric car” we describe :
The accusation that electric cars are to blame for the increase in child labor in Congo comes from Vera Lengsfeld, who expressed this opinion in the “Epoch Times” and other right-wing populist media on August 9, 2017. One day later, on August 10, 2017, the above article appeared on “EIKE”.
In this respect, the reference to the Greens here is deliberately constructed in order to create a negative framing using the term child labor. This is, of course, a strategic goal: one can now refer to the latest results of undercover research by Correctiv and Frontal 21, which published a detailed report on the topic of financing climate deniers and their media strategy.
Article image symbolic photo of child labor electric cars: Shutterstock / By africa924
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Notes:
1) This content reflects the current state of affairs at the time of publication. The reproduction of individual images, screenshots, embeds or video sequences serves to discuss the topic. 2) Individual contributions were created through the use of machine assistance and were carefully checked by the Mimikama editorial team before publication. ( Reason )

