Illicit Cobalt mining supplies the world's demands for lithium ion batteries.
The DRC is far and away the largest supplier of cobalt (extracted from coltan) on the world market. But much of the mining and extraction of cobalt is illicit, unregulated, illegal.
(link to article on the Guardian)
Certainly we, the consumer, are the end users of products containing cobalt. Markets and industry have an insatiable demand for the digital devices that require cobalt and other rare earth elements in order to function. However, global companies are the real beneficiaries, profiting from a porous and corrupt supply chain. These firms have been served in a class action on behalf of a sample group of parents and children; a handful among the multitude of unnamed people who have been dispossessed, evicted, crippled, killed, abused, exploited by the cobalt industry's corrupt and shady foundations.
http://iradvocates.org/sites/iradvocates.org/files/stamped%20-Complaint.pdf
