This is the correct take, but, to do that is more difficult and "overall less markateable" to the public These areas where child labor is still a thing, they a

This is the correct take, but, to do that is more difficult and "overall less markateable" to the public These areas where child labor is still a thing, they are generally backwaters where there is no sanitation let alone large schools with "high" quality housing and food for orphanages A non-trivial amount of these kids have nowhere else to go, or they must work to assist with family income and this is the highest income they can get So yes, this is very much a black market issue, "at best" the areas where the cobalt is could be liased to large international companies like RioTinto, but then that would mean that the children would just move to working in other sources of income But again, these topics are not easily marketable for the general western public