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| Photo by Lucio Patone on Unsplash |
By Atinuke Adeosun
For many, life feels like a card game. I have always liked the saying, “You have to live life with the cards you have been dealt.” Some dismiss it as fatalistic, a way of trapping people in the circumstances they were born into. But I see it differently: it is a call to clarity. If you know your hand, you can choose — fight to improve it, or fold and stay where you are. That feels fair enough.
But do you know what is not fair? When you do not even know which cards you hold. When others who see your cards all too well rig the table, play your hand for you, and convince you that you have nothing worth playing.
It sounds like poker, but poker is just a game. This “game” is being played with human lives (millions of them), many of whom never chose to sit at the table, and some who do not even know the table exists.
Africa was dealt a winning hand. The earth here sparkles with diamonds, glows with gold, and hums with cobalt — the very minerals that power smartphones, light cities, and fuel the electric dreams of the global economy. Yet somehow, Africa is counted last in everything that matters. A cruel paradox: the ground is rich, but the people are poor.
We have been blessed so abundantly that it has become our curse. Nature gave us wealth, but never accounted for human greed. And so, in West Africa and the Congo, riches have been twisted into ruin — illegal mining feeds corruption, funds militias, and buries children alive. Lives, identities, and dignity are stripped away, all to keep the world’s lights on.
Take Raphael, a fifteen-year-old boy, who began digging cobalt tunnels in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). At seventeen, the tunnel collapsed. He suffocated in the dark, crushed by the earth he worked to survive. Cobalt, the metal inside your smartphone battery, your laptop, your electric car, killed him. Over half the world’s cobalt comes from Congo. And yet, the families who pull it from the ground live and die in abject poverty.
Raphael’s death is not an anomaly. It is a symbol. From Sierra Leone’s gravel pits to Congo’s cobalt shafts, mining has become entangled with violence, displacement, and child labor, undermining peace, justice, and strong institutions at every turn.
Children in Chains of Dust
Almost everyone has seen Blood Diamond — or at least heard its warning. Set in Sierra Leone’s late-1990s civil war, the film peels back the glittering façade of gemstones to reveal the blood beneath.
Solomon Vandy (Djimon Hounsou), a humble fisherman, watches his peaceful village dissolve in gunfire. His wife and daughters flee, but his young son, Dia, is kidnapped, transformed by rebels into a child soldier who can pull a trigger without blinking. Solomon himself is chained to brutal labor in the mud, digging for stones that finance the very war tearing his family apart.
In that same chaos, Danny Archer (Leonardo DiCaprio), a cynical smuggler chasing his ticket out of Africa, learns that Solomon has hidden a rare pink diamond. To Archer, it is freedom. To Solomon, it is hope, the only way to buy back his family’s future. Joining them is Maddy Bowen (Jennifer Connelly), a journalist bent on exposing how conflict diamonds make their way to glittering Western shop windows.
The journey that follows is perilous, but its most gut-wrenching moment is quiet and personal. Deep in rebel territory, Solomon finally finds Dia — only to stare down the barrel of his own child’s rifle. Brainwashed and hardened, Dia has been taught to kill without mercy. Solomon’s desperate plea cuts through the indoctrination: “You are my son! You are a good boy who loves school. You are not a killer!” Slowly, Dia lowers his weapon, recognizing love through the fog of war.
Archer’s last act is a sacrifice. Wounded and cornered, he gives Solomon and Dia the time to escape with the diamond. In the film’s closing scene, Solomon testifies before an international tribunal, telling the world that the sparkle on a bride’s finger often comes at the price of an African child’s blood.
But here’s the tragedy: that story did not end when the credits rolled. More than twenty years after Sierra Leone’s “blood diamond” war, the country’s children are still shackled to the earth. Journalist Greg Campbell found toddlers in quarries southeast of Freetown, hammers in hand, pounding rocks from dawn until dusk just to survive. In one pit, an eight-year-old girl named Mariatu slipped from a cliff and shattered her arm so badly that it healed crooked — a permanent scar of poverty etched into her bones
The numbers are staggering. An estimated 10,000 Sierra Leonean children work in diamond and gravel mines, some hauling 60 kilos of ore on their backs for pennies. The U.S. Department of Labor warns that 72% of Sierra Leonean children (ages 5–14) are trapped in child labor.
This isn’t just Sierra Leone. In Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ghana, the Sahel’s goldfields are littered with tiny bodies. The International Labour Organization reports that one-quarter of all child labor in mining worldwide happens in this region, with 70% of those children under 15. They descend into pits without helmets or ropes, breathing toxic dust, wielding tools larger than their arms, all so the world can wear shiny things.
When Wealth Breeds Hunger
In Sierra Leone, relocations for large mines have torn families from farms: Human Rights Watch documented hundreds of villagers uprooted by an iron ore project in Tonkolili, where police even beat striking workers. The new settlements promised “paradise,” the villagers said, but what they got was barren fields and hunger. As one elder put it: “They said, ‘It will be paradise for you,’ but it’s completely different”. In Sierra Leone’s quest for growth (a postwar boom once made it the fastest-growing economy in Africa), corruption and opaque deals have “interfered” with progress. Even as GDP soared, living conditions barely improved, leading one local activist to wonder: “If growth doesn’t happen for the people, then what’s the point?”
Across the continent, resource wealth funnels upward: to elites, to foreign corporations, to warlords, while the communities that dig the wealth out are left with nothing.
The pattern is clear. Colonial-era greed never really ended; it just changed clothes. Mining licenses are still handed out as favors to cronies and foreign firms. The land is stripped bare, the people displaced, and the profits vanish offshore.
Mines that Fund Militias
In Burkina Faso and Mali, gold doesn’t just glitter: it kills. Smuggling syndicates, armed groups, and corrupt officials siphon wealth from unregulated mines. Militias seize shafts or set up checkpoints, forcing miners to pay “taxes” to fund their insurgencies.
In eastern Congo, the story is even bloodier. Over 120 armed groups fight for control of mineral-rich land. For more than three decades, these militias have mined war—financing themselves through coltan, gold, tin, tungsten, cobalt, and copper.
Rwanda-backed M23 rebels recently seized the cities of Goma and Bukavu, killing over 7,000 civilians. They now control the Rubaya coltan mine, pulling in about $300,000 a month. Villagers are forced to dig or die. Boys are kidnapped and turned into soldiers; women and girls are raped to terrorize communities into submission.
In the DRC, Congolese authorities and army officers collude with smugglers and rebels. Global Witness documented how local officials in South Kivu covered up illicit gold deals with militias. An IMF report even showed Rwanda exporting vastly more gold and coltan than it produces, suggesting large-scale smuggling from the DRC. Oil-rich Nigeria offers a parallel: decades of oil wealth have enriched political elites and foreign firms while stoking insurgency in the Niger Delta and civilian revolts. The pattern is clear: lacking strong institutions and transparency, resource wealth funnels up to elites and warlords, leaving local people poorer and angrier.
The Faces of Exploitation
At the human level, it is the children and villagers who pay the price. In the DRC, an entire generation risks losing its childhood. At least 40,000 Congolese children are estimated to be working in cobalt mines, some as young as six. These children endure backbreaking work for a few pennies. A U.S. lawsuit notes parents sometimes pay children ~$1.50 per day to dig, even though dozens of kids have died in collapses.
The Guardian journalist Siddharth Kara found a Congolese boy, Raphael, who loved school but was driven into mining by poverty. “When Raphael turned 15, he started digging tunnels… On 16 April 2018, the tunnel above him collapsed… he was crushed in the earth… suffocating in darkness, dying alone”. Kara’s chilling report – which spurred international lawsuits – argues this is among “the worst injustice of slavery and child exploitation that he’s seen”. (Courts have since been asked to hold Apple, Tesla, and other giants responsible for their role in this tragic chain.
In Sierra Leone’s Adonkia quarries, refugee children swing hammers at dawn, selling bowls of gravel for 30 cents—just enough to buy a bowl of rice. Some classmates show up to school missing fingers or toes from blasting accidents. In Burkina Faso, NGOs have found trafficked boys panning for gold under the eyes of armed guards, beaten if they fall behind.
Nigeria: Oil and Gold, Wealth and Wounds
Nigeria is no stranger to the curse of resource wealth. In the oil-rich Niger Delta, decades of spills and pipeline vandalism have blackened rivers and destroyed farmland. Locals describe their home as “dead water” – creeks poisoned beyond repair. In 2023 alone, Nigeria lost $3 billion to oil theft and illegal refining. Military crackdowns periodically destroy bunkering camps, yet insiders in politics, business, and even security forces often collude in this trade. Ordinary villagers call it “drinking from your well”, a desperate survival tactic in a region left behind by the very oil that should enrich it.
In Zamfara State and the wider north-west, gold mining has become a war economy. When the government banned mining in 2019 to choke off armed groups, violence only escalated: reported deaths spiked 183%, from 2,247 (2015–2019) to 6,349 (2020–2023). Bandits seized mine sites, imposed “taxes,” and kidnapped over 2,000 villagers in 2023 alone. Entire communities have been displaced, farms abandoned, and children pulled from school to work in deadly pits. In 2010, over 400 children died of lead poisoning linked to artisanal gold mining – the worst outbreak in history.
Both Nigeria’s crude oil and its gold have become fuel for organized crime and armed violence, while corrupt elites benefit. Investigations reveal collusion between politically connected Nigerians, foreign buyers, and local warlords. These cases mirror the DRC’s resource wars – wealth siphoned upward, lawlessness spreading downward.
The Global Connection: Eating the Cake and Having It
Western and Asian corporations can no longer claim ignorance of where Africa’s minerals come from. Laws like the U.S. Dodd-Frank Act require disclosure of conflict minerals, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has issued responsible–sourcing guidelines; yet enforcement remains weak, and violations go largely unpunished. Amnesty International reported in 2023 that entire Congolese villages were bulldozed without warning to make way for copper and cobalt projects. Supply-chain audits designed to “certify” clean minerals are routinely manipulated, allowing blood-soaked tin, gold, and cobalt to slip seamlessly into our phones, laptops, and electric cars.
The phrase “eat your cake and have it” perfectly captures this hypocrisy. Corporations, investors, and local elites enjoy staggering profits from African mineral wealth while refusing to bear the human or moral costs. They market themselves as champions of sustainability and “ethical sourcing,” yet rely on supply chains tainted by child labor, forced displacement, and violent conflict. They “eat the cake” by extracting cobalt, gold, and oil, and still “have it” by polishing their reputations with glossy ESG reports.
This greenwashed greed is not abstract. In 2019, Congolese families sued Apple, Alphabet (Google), Dell, Microsoft, and Tesla for knowingly benefiting from child labor in cobalt mining. Glencore, a Swiss commodities giant, paid over $1.1 billion in U.S. fines for corruption in Congo. In Nigeria’s Niger Delta, Shell, Eni, and Chevron have faced lawsuits and global condemnation for environmental devastation and complicity in illegal oil networks.
Meanwhile, African communities — the very people sitting atop this mineral wealth — are told to “tighten their belts,” give up their land, and accept poisoned water or child labor as the price of progress. Just as warlords and corrupt officials seek wealth without governance, multinational corporations want raw materials without accountability. As grassroots movements like #NoCongoNoPhone remind us, peace is not a transaction to be bartered for cobalt, copper, or lithium. It is a right — one that should never come with strings attached to the world’s smartphones, batteries, or luxury goods.
The Pattern is Clear
Across Africa, mineral wealth without strong institutions leads to misery. Children haul ore instead of books. Villagers are uprooted by soldiers or militias. Rivers are poisoned, forests stripped, and communities trapped between foreign companies, armed gangs, and complicit officials. In Congo, rebels tax cobalt. In Mali, gold funds jihadists. In Nigeria, oil theft drains billions while Zamfara’s gold finances rural massacres.
International companies are not innocent bystanders. Tech and automotive giants have been sued for knowingly sourcing cobalt mined by children (Reuters). Amnesty reports that Congolese villages have been bulldozed to make way for copper and cobalt projects. In Nigeria, Western and Asian buyers still purchase crude and gold routed through smuggling networks.
What Can Be Done?
Strengthen governance and transparency: Publish mining contracts, enforce land rights, and prosecute collusion. Initiatives like the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) must be backed by real legal power.
Protect communities: Resettlements must meet international standards, and companies must pay fair compensation or face sanctions.
Eradicate child labor: Fully traceable, audited supply chains are vital. Mines that rely on forced or child labor must be blacklisted.
Hold companies accountable: The US, EU, and African governments must enforce conflict-mineral laws and penalize firms that ignore due diligence.
Support local alternatives: Education, livelihoods, and infrastructure must reach mining regions so poverty no longer drives families into deadly pits.
But above else, we need everybody to stop burying their heads in the sand. Blood is fueling so many industries. We need to hold our leaders accountable. Cheap does not always mean good.
Telling These Stories, Demanding Justice
African lives are being traded for cheap raw materials, their blood and sweat underwriting the world’s wealth and development. Human rights abuses that most governments would never dare inflict on their citizens are inflicted on Africans daily — because weakened institutions make it possible. These are not accidents of history; they are deliberate designs, stripping African people of dignity, security, and voice.
Shades of Us believes Africa’s resources must build peace, not war. We tell the stories of children forced into mines, women robbed of healthcare, and entire villages crushed under the weight of corruption.
Mining does not have to mean misery. Africa can rewrite its story if its institutions are strengthened, leaders are held to account, and citizens unite to end corruption and exploitation.
Peace and justice are not privileges: they are rights. Until Africa’s gold, oil, and cobalt enrich its own people instead of funding conflict and oppression, the fight to build strong institutions must continue.
Turning Sparkle into Justice
Africa’s soil should not bleed so the world can shine. From the diamond fields of Sierra Leone to the cobalt tunnels of Congo and the gold pits of Zamfara, children and entire communities are paying a price no jewel, no battery, no barrel of oil is worth. The ground hums with wealth, yet its people are left with hunger, displacement, and graves.
This is not just about corrupt officials or ruthless militias. It is also about the foreign corporations, investors, and consumers who are reaping profit without responsibility, flaunting luxury while denying the humanity buried beneath it.
But Africa is not powerless. Strong institutions, transparent contracts, and grassroots resistance are already challenging the old order.
If the world chooses courage over convenience, Africa’s mineral wealth could build schools instead of graves, power hospitals instead of militias, and fund justice instead of war. The sparkle of diamonds, gold, and cobalt should no longer blind us to the dust, sweat, and blood from which they are torn.
Peace and justice are not gifts to be begged for — they are rights to be claimed. Africa holds the cards to its future. The question is whether the rest of the world will stop stacking the deck against her.
And remember — all that glitters is not gold. And even when it is, ask yourself: whose blood makes it shine?
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