Look at the Congo's population pyramid, its citizens are very young, over half are teenagers or younger: https://www.populationpyramid.net/congo/ https://www.po

Look at the Congo's population pyramid, its citizens are very young, over half are teenagers or younger: https://www.populationpyramid.net/congo/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/congo/ The alternatives to child labor are: - Leave Cobalt in the ground due to lack of workers - Starves the economy - Damages government finances, potentially destabilizing the situation further - Import workers from other countries - High costs relative to local labor - Poor worker treatment (see guest worker programs in UAE, Qatar, etc) - Buy equipment to mechanize production - Requires significant capital - May require significant research and development - Requires infrastructure (power, water, roads, etc) that is not developed currently - Takes decades to implement There isn't a good way out of this situation without an outside benefactor spending massive sums of money, and Apple and every other significant Cobalt purchaser would rather have cheap inputs than disturb the current state of affairs.