DRC: PABEA-Cobalt identifies 14,850 children and 6,250 young people in mining areas in Haut-Katanga and Lualaba
About 14,850 children (girls and boys) and their parents as well as 6,250 young people are involved in the Cobalt supply chain in the provinces of Lualaba and Haut-Katanga.
These figures are revealed by the Congolese Government through the Support Project for the Alternative Welfare of Children and Youth Involved in the Cobalt Supply Chain (PABEA-Cobalt). This, after an identification mission carried out on the ground in the two provinces.
Funded by the African Development Bank Group (AfDB) aims to achieve zero children in artisanal cobalt mines and mining sites.
According to the Coordinator of the Coordination Unit of the PABEA-Cobalt Project and Director General of the National Promotion and Social Service Fund (FNPSS), Me Alice Mirimo Kabetsi, this project will allow social reintegration which will concern aspects of schooling, health, nutrition and civil registration.
The second part of this project is to eradicate definitively in the Democratic Republic of Congo the phenomenon of children working in the mines by taking care of the economic reconversion of the parents.
She further indicated that “the mission to identify the direct beneficiaries of the project to support the alternative well-being of children and young people involved in the cobalt supply chain was launched on January 24 in Kolwezi, in the province from Lualaba. »
And to add: “This activity organized by the province of Lualaba in collaboration with the PABEA-Cobalt aimed at creating employment and self-employment for young people. The interim Governor of Lualaba, Mrs. Fifi Masuka, had requested the involvement of all the structures of her province concerned by this question for the success of this mission”.
