Electric Vehicles: Loved by Environmentalists, but What About the Child Labor?

A day before the Paris Auto show opens to the public, Amnesty International has accused manufacturers of clean, green electric cars of having dirty hands.

The human rights organization threw a wet blanket over the large crop of EVs exhibited in Paris, issuing a release targeting certain automakers for indirectly employing child labor in the construction of its vehicles.

Using data drawn from its own report on the issue, Amnensty International claims that many lithium-ion battery pack suppliers use children as young as seven to mine cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Cobalt is a key component of the batteries, and 20 percent of it is mined by hand, the organization claims. Fatal accidents and lung disease are common in the crude mines, where laborers are paid as little as one dollar a day. Between September 2014 and December 2015, 80 miners died in underground mines in southern DRC, the organization claims.

Companies drawing cobalt from the DRC include Korean manufacturer LG Chem, which supplies batteries for the Chevrolet Volt, Renault Twizy and ZOE, and upgrades to the Tesla Roadster. Another Korean supplier, Samsung SDI, uses DRC-sourced cobalt in batteries bound for the BMW i3 and i8, as well as the Fiat 500e.

According to the organization, “investor documents to show how cobalt mined in the DRC is bought by a Chinese company, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt (Huayou Cobalt), which supplies battery component manufacturers in China and South Korea. In turn, these component manufacturers sell to battery makers including LG Chem and Samsung SDI, that supply many of the world’s largest car companies.”

In its January report, Amnesty International claimed that other manufacturers, including Volkswagen, Daimler and Chinese brand BYD, might source batteries containing DRC cobalt.

Amnesty International recently challenged the car companies, demanding to know what they planned to do about the troubling connection to child labor. The organization gave BMW and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles good marks for their response, but others fell short.

“General Motors (GM) and Tesla did not reply to a request from Amnesty International to provide evidence of how they identify and address human rights abuses in their cobalt supply chains, particularly in relation to child labour,” the organization claims. “Renault said it would respond to Amnesty ‘at the earliest possible time,’ but provided no other information.”

Despite their detailed responses, BMW and Fiat-Chrysler “failed to provide sufficient proof that they were meeting international standards applicable to mineral supply chains,” the organization added.

Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) guidelines states that companies using cobalt mined in high-risk areas should identify their smelters or refiners and disclose any human rights infractions.

[Image: BMW]