Conflict Minerals: The Human Cost of Technology

However, looking deeper into the supply chain -- including where and how common and critical base minerals are extracted, refined and prepared for production -- reveals different sorts of costs. In many, or even most cases, issues including the living and working conditions of miners, and the impact of these processes on the environment are pretty well understood. Not always, though, and that is especially the case in regions where political and economic conflict are rife.

In those places, a greedy elite few often benefit by brutalizing and terrorizing the vast majority of their countryfolk. Nowhere on the planet is this more common than in the Democratic Republic of Congo where, despite the country's astounding mineral wealth, some 80 percent of its 65 million-plus citizens subsist on 30 US cents or less per day, and the average life expectancy -- 48 years in 2013 -- is one of the world's lowest
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/story/Conflict-Minerals-The-Human-Cost-of-Technology-79955.html