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document.querySelector(".email").addEventListener("click", emailArticle); document.querySelector(".icon-share-copy").addEventListener("click", copyURL); </script> </div> </div> </div> <div class="container full-width video pv--24"> <iframe title="DRC mines might be poisoning pregnant women" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xWt-4U54Y68?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe> </div> </div> <div class="inner"> <article id="post-290150" class="post-290150 videos type-videos status-publish has-post-thumbnail hentry location-africa location-central-africa location-democratic-republic-of-congo serial-cobalt-capital topic-climat topic-electric-cars topic-energy topic-green-energy topic-health topic-mining topic-planetary-boundaries topic-public-health byline-denise-maheho byline-dider-makal" style="position: relative"> <div class="container in-column ph--40"> <p>KOLWEZI, Democratic Republic of the Congo – A Mongabay investigation found that industrial and artisanal mining of cobalt and copper in the Democratic Republic of Congo could pose risks to women’s reproductive health. Both cobalt and copper are critical minerals in demand for their essential role in battery-powered technologies, including renewable energy technologies.</p> <p>We collected testimonies from female residents, healthcare workers, and researchers in Kolwezi, the “world’s cobalt capital” in the south of the country. They highlighted a rising number of cases involving birth defects, stillbirths, infant deaths shortly after birth, and genital infections. Although reports are still unclear about the extent to which contact with mining waste, ores, and contaminated water affects women’s health, preliminary studies are underway.</p> <p>Ongoing research suggests the existence of acidifying industrial pollution in waters and high radiation levels in certain ores. Scientists say radiation contamination can spread into rivers and affect artisanal miners and refinery workers alike. The risk is particularly high in artisanal mining, where long-term exposure is compounded by factors such as dust, poor ventilation, and lack of protective equipment. Female artisanal mine workers in one site handled the ore with their bare hands, sat on sacks of ore, or had their bare feet in the river water.</p> <p>Although manufacturers have been cautious about buying products from artisanal miners, the practice persists through an intermediary and anonymous buyers, women told Mongabay. Hundreds of women living in Kolwezi buy the minerals from the mostly male miners and resell them to distributors, who are mainly of Chinese and Indian origin. This presents a source of income for women in the region.</p> <p>Authorities say they are aware of problems and are investigating them. Meanwhile, civil society organizations point to issues in mining regulation and corruption as barriers to addressing ongoing contamination.</p> <p>Watch this video to learn more about the health risks women face at DRC’s mining sites and the questions that remain unanswered.</p> <p>This report was produced in partnership with the Environmental Reporting Collective, a network of newsrooms and journalists committed to cross-border investigations on environmental crimes. It is part of the collaboraive investigation: <a href="https://greedofgreen.earth/p/" data-wpel-link="external" target="_blank" rel="external">Greed of Green: The Dark Side of Green Energy.</a></p> <p><i>Mongabay’s Video Team wants to cover questions and topics that matter </i><b><i>to you</i></b><i>. Are there any inspiring people, urgent issues, or local stories that you’d like us to cover? </i><b><i>We want to hear from you. Be a part of our reporting process—</i></b><a href="https://form.jotform.com/242135364438052" target="_blank" rel="external noopener" data-wpel-link="external"><span class="s1"><b><i>get in touch with us here!</i></b></span></a></p> <p><b><i>Banner image:<span> RAID </span></i></b></p> <blockquote class="wp-embedded-content" data-secret="hbzmMX81UC"><p><a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/cobalt-mining-for-green-energy-risks-womens-reproductive-health-in-drc/" data-wpel-link="internal">Cobalt mining for green energy risks women’s reproductive health in DRC</a></p></blockquote> <iframe class="wp-embedded-content" sandbox="allow-scripts" security="restricted" style="position: absolute; visibility: hidden;" title="“Cobalt mining for green energy risks women’s reproductive health in DRC” — Conservation news" src="https://news.mongabay.com/2024/11/cobalt-mining-for-green-energy-risks-womens-reproductive-health-in-drc/embed/#?secret=hbqJX2sm4F#?secret=hbzmMX81UC" data-secret="hbzmMX81UC" width="500" height="282" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" scrolling="no"></iframe> <div id="transcript" class="container in-column gap--40"> <div><h1>Transcript</h1><i><small>Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.</small></i></div><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A worrying situation. … In the Gulf Musonoi, near Kolwezi in the south of the Democratic Republic of Congo, women are in danger.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Cases of sexual infections, congenital malformations and stillborn births are all part of the daily routine for Julie Nshinda, a nurse who has been working there for six years.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Each month, her medical center sees 5-10 women.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To denounce this situation, Julie decided to break her silence in front of our cameras.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A woman may arrive with complaints of lower abdominal pain, and when I examine her I find that the fetus is dead and decomposing. We ask her to have an ultrasound examination, and then we take her in urgently, because we fear maternal death.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">According to her, the pollution that can be seen from a distance is at the root of the problem. The pollution in question is caused by the extraction of cobalt and copper — from the COMMUS open-cast mine, which overlooks the town.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In a study published in March 2024, the NGOs RAID and AFREWATCH confirmed pollution in the region. Based on more than 22 scientific studies — and 20 civil society reports — the document shows that the rivers, lakes, streams and groundwater near the country’s cobalt and copper mines are seriously polluted by mining activities.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Rivers near the country’s cobalt and copper mines are severely polluted by mining activities.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">According to 56% of respondents in the report, pollution is affecting the gynecological and reproductive health of women and girls.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">56% of respondents say pollution affects women’s gynecological and reproductive health.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Environmental impact of mining in the DRC</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In July 2024, a Mongabay film crew met Professor Célestin Banza, who is at the heart of this report.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Often in the quarries, the women are there to wash the ore. There are men who enter the artisanal mines to dig and bring the ore to the surface. But the women are there, either for example to crush the ore blocks to reduce the dimensions, or for transportation by carrying it on the head or for cleaning to have a higher concentration of these metals.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Professor Banza says he believes that constant contact with these minerals, which contain copper, cobalt, uranium, lead, and arsenic in varying quantities, is highly toxic — even at low concentrations.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the town of Kolwezi, there is no shortage of testimonies from relatives of victims of mining pollution.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">My granddaughter works from time to time in a small-scale mine.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When she goes there, she collects the rocks and, as soon as she has a certain quantity, she goes to the river. There, she cleans them. And when it’s clean, she goes to sell it to the buyers called traders. This is where she was exposed.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When you’re wearing your pants, you need to put on a panty liner or a pad to avoid exposing your genitals.You can’t go out there like that. You can’t go there without dressing accordingly.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">It’s to prevent her genital organs from absorbing the toxic substances. The medical staff taught us that, if you want to go into a mine. But it still doesn’t work. A woman’s body is always exposed to uranium.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Since I’ve been here in 2014, I think I’ve seen three or four women give birth to monsters. There have been several abortions and especially miscarriages! All this is a consequence of COMMUS’ activities. We’re exhausted, we don’t know what to do. Nobody is looking after us.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The women work in the mines to ensure their survival. But where they extract the ore, the level of radioactivity is high. So they expose themselves to radiation, which affects the uterus and complicates the case.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We have not yet received any response from officials of the COMMUS mine that overlooks Kolwezi.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Whether they are cleaning the stones, carrying them or selling them, these women are not informed about the radiation that the ores could produce.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In certain small-scale mines, like Kapata, located a few kilometers away, mining cooperatives have been established to safeguard the women who wash the ores.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">A practice that is far from being widespread.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Direct contact with the ore is not the sole reason for these women’s health problems.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Without even working in the mines, some of them are directly affected by the region’s polluted rivers.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Lake water from the Gulf … we used to use it for all our household needs, drinking it and bathing in it. Nowadays, we no longer drink it. If you wash yourself in this water, you get itchy skin. The water in the lake is contaminated by mining products. We used to drink this water. Now they’ve put machines in there, and we don’t really know what they’re used for.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">That’s the root of our health problems, because in the past we didn’t have as many cases of miscarriages. I’ve had four successive miscarriages. Three months later, I had a miscarriage. I had another pregnancy, which also didn’t last beyond three months. That wasn’t the case in the past.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">We can be contaminated either through the skin, because we handle it at all times, when we are cleaning clothes in the river or because we consume it. We use the water for bathing, or there are aerosols, droplets that are inhaled or absorbed through the mouth.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Pollution is becoming almost generalized in all areas where minerals are mined. There is diffuse pollution. Environmental rules are not respected at all. Very few companies respect environmental law.</span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Women are not the only ones affected. … Professor Banza is currently investigating the link between mining pollution and reduced fertility in local men</span></p> </div> <div id="expander-container" class="container full-width"> <a class="content-expander text-center"><span>Read full transcript</span></a> </div> </div> <div id="single-article-footer" class="container ph--40 in-column"> <div class="container in-column about-editor-translator gap--40 pv--80"> <div class="section-title gap--16"> <h4>Credits </h4> <div class="divider"></div> </div> <div class="container grid--3 repeat gap--40"> <div class="in-row gap--16"> <div class="author-avatar"> <img alt='' src='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8ab5081be32d0bbe0317bc635df49213?s=32&d=identicon&r=g' srcset='https://secure.gravatar.com/avatar/8ab5081be32d0bbe0317bc635df49213?s=64&d=identicon&r=g 2x' class='avatar avatar-32 photo' height='32' 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