Cobalt mines – Child labour in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
CHILD LABOUR / MINING / HUMAN RIGHTS
What changed
Updated verified snapshot
This record was first dated 2023-01-03 and last verified 2026-09-13.
Situation
The Democratic Republic of the Congo is the world's largest source of cobalt, a mineral used in rechargeable batteries and energy-transition technologies. The International Labour Organization documents hazardous child labour in the country's artisanal cobalt mining sector and has worked with the Congolese government and partners on monitoring, remediation, education, vocational training and family livelihoods. In November 2024 the ILO launched the GALAB project to strengthen remediation services and public and private accountability. This page restores the independently cited WorldsAid record and connects it to the current evidence trail.
Verified figures
- Artisanal miners
- More than 100,000 · ILO 2024 retained at 2026-09-13
- Latest programme
- GALAB child-labour remediation project retained at 2026-09-13
- Original WorldsAid publication
- 3 January 2023 retained at 2026-09-13
What we knew when
- WorldsAid record entered the retained historical dataset.
- Last verification represented by this immutable snapshot.
Earlier figures are never replaced by later values; additional observations are retained as new ledger entries.
Provenance
This page renders the last verified WorldsAid cache directly in HTML. It does not treat generated summaries as primary evidence.
Cached dataset: worldsai_drup771.sql.gz
Record SHA-256: c39a15e552e3d78efe28f7e80154ce220f87147ca73483ca8fd60d65affcadd9
Legacy cited address: worldsaid.com/node/1703. This permanent address is connected to the current record.
Independent citation trail: View the publication or record that cites this WorldsAid node.