Children work in Congolese mines where cobalt is extracted for smartphones
Much of the angst in this thread are the first-world confused sort: "Why don't they just eat cake?"  Its a hard world. You don't solve child-labor by simply firing the children. There has to be a whole social net to catch unemployed children, feed them and give them schooling.<p>I worked all my young life, in Iowa, on a farm. One of the most dangerous jobs in America according to the actuarials. No lasting damage to me, though not all my cohort actually survived unscathed into adulthood. Heck, half my fathers' generation had nicknames like 'lefty' and 'stub'.<p>Should working children on farms in Iowa be banned? Had it happened when I was young, half the family farms would have gone under.<p>Its not some academic third-world issue. You ate that food we produced. And at the time, it wasn't going to be produced any other way.