COBALT RED, how the blood of the Congo powers our lives

274pp., paperback, Reprint, St Martin's Griffin, New York, (2023) 2024

ISBN: 9781250322159

Siddharth Kara on the human rights abuses behind the Democratic Republic of Congo’s cobalt mining operation.

Roughly 75 percent of the world's supply of cobalt - an essential component to every lithium-ion rechargeable battery made - is mined in the Congo, often by peasants and children in sub-human conditions.

“With extraordinary tenacity and compassion, Siddharth Kara evokes one of the most dramatic divides between wealth and poverty in the world today. His reporting on how the dangerous, ill-paid labor of Congo children provides a mineral essential to our cellphones will break your heart. I hope policy-makers on every continent will read this book.” Adam Hochschild, author of King Leopold's Ghost

"As the world continues to embrace the net zero agenda and becomes ever more dependent on personal electronic devices and new technologies, this compelling book paints a dire portrait of the conditions under which a crucial natural resource is extracted. Drawing on multiple field missions and first-hand accounts of the process of cobalt mining in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Siddharth Kara shows in vivid detail not only life on the ground and the true human cost of extraction, but also the gross inequalities built into global value chains and business models that underpin this industry. This account reinforces our understanding of the interdependent and mutually reinforcing nature of all human rights and the many negative externalities of our modern global economy." Todd Landman, Professor of Political Science, Pro Vice Chancellor of the Faculty of Social Sciences, and Executive Director of the Rights Lab at the University of Nottingham

Siddharth Kara is an author, researcher, and activist on modern slavery. He is a British Academy Global Professor and an Associate Professor of Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery at Nottingham University. His books include Modern Slavery A global perspective and Sex Trafficking: Inside the business of modern slavery (2010 Frederick Douglass Book Prize). He divides his time between the UK and the USA.