Samsung, Apple and Sony accused of using child labour



Samsung, Apple and Sony are undoubtedly among the biggest and most popular smartphone makers in the world. The products of these company’s are used in every country, I presume has capacity for the use of modern day technology. Needless to say, company’s such as Apple, Samsung and Sony has a lot of
customers, and they have to meet their phone demands, hence, these company’s require large raw material for production of smartphones.

well, It turns out that there method of sourcing these smartphone raw materials  is alleged to be in violation of human rights. Human rights organization Amnesty has recently revealed claims Against  Samsung, Sony, Apple, and many other companies for failing to ensure that the minerals used used in their products were not acquired using child labour. Report says that children as young as seven years were being used to work in cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The accused company’s have all come out to make clear statements that they do not condone child labour in anyway, they also  stated that contracts with mining industries will be terminated if they discovered that they used child labour to obtain resources. However, Amnesty believes these companies can do much more in preventing the use of children for labour, rather than ignore he question of where and how resources provided to  them by mining companies came about.

Afrewatch’s executive director, Emmanuel Umpula, stated:

It is a major paradox of the digital era that some of the world’s richest, most innovative companies are able to market incredibly sophisticated devices without being required to show where they source raw materials for their components. The abuses in mines remain out of sight and out of mind because in today’s global marketplace, consumers have no idea about the conditions at the mine, factory and assembly line.

Cobalt is an essential component of Lithium batteries, with 50% of world deposit found in Democratic Republic of Congo. Consequently, it is not expected that companies who source raw materials will be leaving the country for another. They will have to jointly improve the conditions of labour in these country and also ban child labour. How far these companies respond to the allegation, will be known in time.


What do you think about child labour and their alleged use by smartphone companies?

Source: androidNigeria

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