Amnesty International released a report this morning entitled, This is what we die for: Human rights abuses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo power the global trade in cobalt.

From the report:

Huayou Cobalt has been purchasing cobalt in southern DRC since 2006. It runs a large, well-staffed operation in the country, with offices in at least three cities (Lubumbashi, Likasi and Kolwezi). The dangerous conditions and frequent accidents in the artisanal mines, the presence of tens of thousands of child miners, and the DRC government’s poor regulation of artisanal mining have all been well documented in recent years by the international and Congolese media, NGOs, governments and international bodies, as detailed in Chapter 2. The company has itself been the subject of criticism – in 2008, Bloomberg News published a story alleging that Huayou Cobalt bought cobalt that had been mined by children.

In July 2015, Amnesty International contacted Huayou Cobalt and asked them a series of questions to clarify changes made to their process to address these issues.

Addressing Huayou Cobalt’s response:

In its letter, there is no indication that it traces the cobalt supply chain to the mining areas itself. Huayou Cobalt also does not mention inspecting or addressing conditions in the unauthorized artisanal mining zones, such as Kasulo, even though its suppliers are buying cobalt that has been mined there.

And:

In summary, Huayou Cobalt is failing to respect international human rights as required by the UN Guiding Principles and it is not implementing the five-step framework recommended in the OECD Guidance, despite the fact that the OECD Guidance has been recognised by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Metals Minerals & Chemicals Importers & Exporters as the “recognised international framework” to conduct mineral supply chain due diligence.

So how does Apple tie into all this?

In its report, Amnesty lays out the supply chain leading from Huayou Cobalt, to:

• Battery component manufacturers, down to…
• Battery manufacturers, who buy from them, down to…
• Electronics and vehicle manufacturers, such as Apple, who buy these batteries

In a nutshell, Apple, in its official Supplier List, lists:

• Samsung SDI
• Tianjin Lishen
• LG Chem

as suppliers. All three of these companies are listed in the Amnesty report as battery manufacturers who are downstream customers of Huayou Cobalt.

It’s not clear that Apple is buying batteries with child labor in the supply chain and, if it has, its not clear that Apple is aware of this. But the report is now out. I can only imagine Apple will issue some sort of statement addressing this.