Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives

by Siddharth Kara

There are no schools in the villages. Each member of the family must earn for the collective to survive.”

“Here it is better not to be born.”

“Please tell the people in your country, a child in the Congo dies every day so that they can plug in their phones.”

“The mama says the lake is poison,” he reported. “She said, ‘It kills the babies inside us. Mosquitoes do not drink the blood of the people who work here.’”

that prostitution and digging for cobalt were the same

The norms of wealthy countries could not simply be imposed upon the poor.

hope in the Congo is like a hot coal—take hold, and it will scald you to the bone.

Lasting change is best achieved when the voices of those who are exploited are able to speak for themselves, and are heard when they do so.