How child labor and illegal mines are fueling Nigeria’s lithium boom

The growing demand for lithium has created a new frontier for mining in mineral-rich Nigeria.

Dressed in a faded pink dress, 6-year-old Juliet Samaniya squats under scorching skies to chip at a jagged white rock with a stone tool. Dust coats her tiny hands and her hair as she works hour after hour for less than a dollar a day. The landscape around her is dotted with active and abandoned mineshafts, farmland that may soon be cleared in search of more rich ore, and other mine workers — many of them children.