Zororai Nkomo and Rutendo Mugabe

Introduction

The discovery of transition minerals, such as lithium, cobalt, copper, nickel, and rare earth elements, across the African continent has been hailed as a gateway to economic transformation and a vital contribution to the global shift toward a just energy transition. These minerals are essential for powering renewable energy technologies, electric vehicles, and the broader decarbonisation agenda. Yet, this promise comes with a troubling cost: the exploitation of children.

Far from ushering in shared prosperity, the expansion of the extractive sector in many African countries continues to pose serious threats to children's rights. The surge in mining activities, particularly in artisanal and small-scale mining, has fuelled widespread child labour and violations of the right to education, revealing a stark contradiction between the green aspirations of the energy transition and the lived realities on the ground. This growing crisis raises urgent questions for the evolving field of Business and Human Rights (BHR) in Africa: How can a sector so central to sustainable development be allowed to operate in ways that so blatantly undermine the rights of the continent’s most vulnerable?

This opinion piece argues that the extraction of transition minerals, while vital for climate goals, must not come at the expense of children's rights. It explores how minerals like cobalt and lithium are being mined under exploitative conditions involving children, and calls for stronger corporate accountability, BHR frameworks, and the urgent implementation of human rights due diligence across mineral value chains in Africa.

Child labour and exploitation

The ILO defines child labour as any type of work that deprives children (any person under 18) of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to their physical and/or mental development. Article 32(1) of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) provides that States Parties should recognise the right of the child to be protected from any form of economic exploitation and from performing any type of work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child's education, or to be harmful to the child's health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. Article 15(1) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (The Children’s Charter) obliges all Member States to protect all forms of economic exploitation and any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral, or social development. Despite all the international and regional human rights instruments to insulate children from child labour, the extraction of transition minerals in Africa has become a continental curse due to the upsurge of child rights violations through child labour in the mining value chain.  

Globally, it is estimated that over 160 million children are engaged in Child Labour. The 2024 Findings on Worst Forms of Child Labour Report for the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Bolivia revealed numerous cases of child labour mining transition minerals such as cobalt, copper, lithium, manganese, tantalum, tin, tungsten, and zinc. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, it is estimated that 40,000 children, some as young as six years old, are facing child labour in cobalt mining.  Most of these children work in small-scale mining, where they earn less than $2 per day. It is estimated that 50,000 of the 100,000 to 140,000 people working in the Katanga mine area in the DRC are children as young as seven years old who are dropping out of school to engage in mining activities.

The Zimbabwe Environmental Lawyers Association Report revealed that thousands of children in Zimbabwe are driven into artisanal mining. The lithium rush in Zimbabwe has lured thousands of small-scale miners and artisanal miners, including children who were driven by poverty to join dangerous mining expeditions. Zimbabwe’s Sandawana Lithium Mine, located in Mberengwa District in the Midlands Province, has been reported to be attracting thousands of artisanal diggers working in unsafe conditions, with reports of child labour and miners being buried by a mine collapse. The majority of children exposed to artisanal lithium are exposed to unhealthy mineral activities, including unsafe digging conditions, dust, mine collapses, and dangerous chemicals used in processing. These children work without protective gear, and they are vulnerable to many types of injuries and health complications. In countries such as Burkina Faso and Niger it is estimated that over 200,000 children are experiencing child labour working in small-scale mines and quarries.

Article 11 (Right to Education) of the African Children’s Charter is one of the longest provisions and a heavily worded article with a lot of emphasis on Member States, such as Zimbabwe, to jealously guard the right to education for an African continent fit for children. However, the exigencies created by critical mining activities reflect otherwise. Students living in the vicinity of the Sabi Star Lithium mining company in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe, dropped out of school and joined due to poverty. In the DRC, more than 10,000 children were in cobalt mining, and nearly 9000 of them were returned to school by the African Development Bank.

Nigeria is one of the African states recording high cases of child labour in lithium production, where children as young as six years are involved in mining. According to the Business and Human Rights Centre, Nigeria’s extractive sector is poorly regulated and dominated by Chinese companies, which are constantly accused of child labour, illegal mining and labour exploitation.

Understanding principles of Business and Human Rights

In June 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council adopted a resolution endorsing the Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs). The UNGPs aim to provide a framework for UN Member States to prevent and address human rights violations related to business activities through three important pillars: Protecting, Respecting, and offering proper Remedies for human rights abuses by business entities.

The first pillar of UNGPs is Protection. This pillar requires that all states have an international human rights law obligation to protect against human rights violations in all business operations by taking necessary and appropriate measures to prevent such violations, effective policies, laws, and adjudication. African countries should make necessary legal and regulatory frameworks to protect and promote children's rights in all mining activities and value chains. This implies that governments must protect children from rights violations by third parties (Mining Companies). Failure by governments to take appropriate steps to prevent, investigate and punish child rights violations in mineral value chains constitutes a breach of moral and legal international human rights law, and such breach will be attributed to the member state.

The second pillar is to Respect human rights through corporate responsibility.  Mining companies and those involved in mineral value chains should respect children’s rights. This entails that the responsibility of mining companies to respect children’s rights applies to all, whether small and artisanal miners, regardless of their size, operational context, ownership and structure.  Mining companies should have policies in place to demonstrate that they respect human rights. To achieve corporate responsibility for respecting human rights, mining companies are obligated to conduct human rights due diligence. Human rights due diligence is a comprehensive process that involves assessing both actual and potential impacts, acting upon the findings, tracking responses, and communicating how these impacts can be addressed.

The last pillar is access to Remedy. States must take appropriate steps and measures in the event of human rights violations. These steps must ensure that, through judicial, administrative, and legislative means, any type of violation committed by a company is addressed and rectified. To provide access to remedy for children's rights violations by mining operations, States should facilitate access to remedy through state-based and non-judicial grievance mechanisms.

Moreover, it is essential to recognise that the responsibility for addressing child labour in the extraction of transition minerals does not rest solely with African states or local mining entities. The global nature of mineral value chains means that multinational corporations, particularly those engaged in downstream sectors such as the automotive, electronics, and renewable energy industries, are deeply implicated in shaping the conditions under which minerals are sourced. These companies, often headquartered in the Global North, have a heightened responsibility under the second pillar of the UNGPs to conduct human rights due diligence that meaningfully identifies, prevents, and mitigates the risk of child labour within their supply chains. This includes mapping the full extent of their mineral sourcing networks, enforcing contractual obligations that prohibit exploitative child labour practices, and supporting supplier capacity-building in line with international standards. Without such proactive measures, the growing global demand for energy transition minerals risks perpetuating systemic rights violations at the point of extraction. Therefore, the duty to respect children’s rights must be understood as a shared transnational obligation, one that binds both state and non-state actors across jurisdictions. Despite these guidelines not being binding, by virtue of their nature as guidelines, it can be argued that they have, over time, attained the status of customary international law, and their relevance in current times can no longer be ignored.

Conclusion

African states must institutionalise child rights programming within mineral governance frameworks. Meanwhile, companies must demonstrate their commitment to responsible business conduct through meaningful due diligence, supply chain transparency, and stakeholder engagement. The future of Africa’s children cannot be sacrificed at the altar of global energy ambitions. Creating a just, equitable, and child rights-sensitive extractive sector is not only a legal imperative but a moral necessity.

About the Authors:

Zororai Nkomo is a human rights specialist, with a specific focus on Children and Business and Human Rights in Africa,  Legal Researcher with the African Union’s Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACERWC), with a multidisciplinary background encompassing law, public prosecution, journalism and social justice advocacy. He holds a Bachelor of Laws Degree LLB (Cum Laude) from the University of South Africa (UNISA) and Master of Laws LLM Specialising in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa (HRDA) from Centre for Huma Rights, University of Pretoria.

Rutendo Mugabe is a legal scholar specialising in business and human rights, environmental and corporate laws. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) at the University of Pretoria, where she also holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in Corporate Law. Rutendo holds an LLB and a Bachelor of Commerce in Law. She serves as a Project Coordinator at the Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria, working within the Business and Human Rights Unit and the African Coalition for Corporate Accountability (ACCA). Her work focuses on using the law as a transformative tool to advance responsible business conduct through research, advocacy, and regional coordination.