Migration
Please read and watch our latest Just Act resource, Climate Displacement: How Environmental Irresponsibility is (Partially) Responsible for Our Global Migration Crisis , which explores the interconnection between each of our four commitments! This is especially important as we pray for those affected by the recent earthquake in Haiti and the earthquake/tsunami that devastated Indonesia.
(Human) Trafficking
This week, we would also like to feature the next installment of the Human Trafficking Committee’s series on Child Labor:
Child Labor and Technology by Pat Glinka, SSND
I love my smartphone –courtesy of an upgrade in a family plan. The smartphone holds my contacts and identifies the caller so that I need not answer scam calls. It gives me great directions to unknown destinations. It holds my calendar and sets an alarm to remind me of meetings and appointments. It even holds my special photos. I love my smartphone, but I also hold in mind and heart what Pope Francis said in Laudato Si’:
“We should be particularly indignant at the enormous inequalities in our midst, whereby we continue to tolerate some considering themselves more worthy than others. We fail to see that some are mired in desperate and degrading poverty, with no way out, while others have not the faintest idea of what to do with their possessions, vainly showing off their supposed superiority and leaving behind them so much waste which, if it were the case everywhere, it would destroy the planet. In practice, we continue to tolerate that some consider themselves more human than others, as if they had been born with greater rights” (91).
Please click to read this very important story:
Meet Dorsen, 8, who mines cobalt to make your smartphone work
"Eightpence a day for backbreaking work. At one cobalt mine, children toiled in the drenching rain carrying huge sacks of the mineral."
So what can be done and what is being done about this type of child labor?
An updated (November 15, 2017) report from Amnesty International explains its efforts and the efforts of various technology companies.
- Survey of electronics and car companies shows major blind spots in supply chains
- Apple is the industry leader for responsible cobalt sourcing – but the bar is low
- Microsoft, Lenovo and Renault have made least progress
My conclusion/action is to follow up on Amnesty International and its efforts to investigate and publicize the progress of technology companies to seek responsible cobalt sourcing.
What is your conclusion/action?
To Learn more, please view our Just Act on Child Labor, Child Labor, Illiteracy, and Poverty: A Tragic Cycle , for more information and suggested actions.
