Children as young as five-years-old were found to be working in one illegal mine.
Electric vehicles, laptops, battery packs, smartphones…it’s a long list of items we rely on every day that rely on a key material: lithium. But have you stopped to think who mines for this precious metal? In northern Nigeria, it has been found to be children. Lithium mining is dangerous and exhausting work.
Miners descend several feet into dark pits then wield axes to hack through rocks. In some old but viable mines, they crawl through yards of snaky, narrow passages, wedging themselves between unstable mud walls before starting to dig. Abdullahi Sabiu has spent years in these pits after he started working the mines at 20.
“I know that mining activities are dangerous, and there are disadvantages, but every profession has its own disadvantages, including driving, and death is unpredictable,” says the lithium miner in Nassarawa state, north central Nigeria. “Someone might be riding on a motorcycle, and a driver could knock him down and die,” Abdullahi added.
For the rest of this article: https://www.euronews.com/green/2024/12/13/child-labour-nigerias-lithium-mines-reveal-the-dark-side-of-our-electric-future