The study identified 251 cases of forced labor among employed cobalt workers in the sample and extrapolated a weighted estimate that 78 percent of employed cobalt workers experience forced labor. Bearing in mind research limitations, the study offers an estimate of forced labor among employed adult workers in cobalt mining: between 67,000 and 80,000 workers experience forced labor...

Most workers reported exposure to multiple hazards. On average, employed workers who experience forced labor are exposed to more hazards (5.0), compared to employed workers who do not experience forced labor (4.0). Among all workers, the most common hazards are dust or strong fumes without appropriate protective equipment (84 percent), using dangerous or sharp tools or heavy machinery without appropriate protective equipment (77 percent), and carrying unreasonably heavy loads (77 percent)...

Nearly two-thirds of all workers (63 percent) have gotten hurt or sick because of their work in their most recent job in cobalt mining...About two-thirds of workers at ASM sites and a quarter of workers at LSM sites report that children work at their worksite...

In aggregate, these findings indicate that labor conditions for cobalt mine workers are abominable. Workers are routinely exposed to a panoply of work-related hazards, most suffer illness or injury related to their work, and many experience forced labor...

Serious labor rights violations have been revealed by studies conducted in five industrial mines in DRC, including Chinese-owned mines: Kamoto Copper Company, Metalkol Roan Tailings Reclamation, Tenke Fungurume Mining, La Sino-Congolaise des Mines (Sicomines), and Deziwa Mining Company (Somidez). Some adult workers are reported to be working in extreme hardship at the cost of their own lives, without sufficient breaks, and for wages as low as $2 per day, while using their own tools, primarily their hands. Subcontracted miners reported working under exploitative labor conditions and having pay agreements regularly violated. Workers face continuous abusive treatment, systematic violence, racism, ethnic violence, a dangerous working environment, and the absence of basic health provisions. These normalized forms of abuse in both LSM and ASM remain largely unaddressed by Congolese labor inspectors, with recurrent reports of miners being “beaten with sticks, insulted, shouted at, or pulled around by their ears.”...