E227. Siddharth Kara Explains Slavery Exists Today On A Global Scale

Siddharth Kara, author, researcher, and activist on modern slavery sits down with Bridget to discuss the harsh reality of cobalt mining and the fact that the technological world is built using modern day slaves. In a powerful and important conversation Siddharth explains how people like you and I cannot function in the world for 24 hours without participating in enormous violence and destruction in the Congo. The first step in affecting change is to flood the world with truth and to confront the abhorrent conditions and violence that provide us with computers, phones, tablets and electric vehicles. He and Bridget discuss the truth about the supply chain, what it's like on the ground in the Congo, the suffering he has witnessed and what we can do about it. They also cover his journey from finance to traveling the world doing research on modern slavery and child labor, why there’s a structural failing happening when there’s a choice between being exploited or starving, how people in power often have it completely wrong when talking about solutions for people that they’ve never met, the difference between the PR and fictions told by the companies profiting off the cobalt and the reality of what’s happening on the ground, why there has to be a force of moral authority imposed on capitalism, the struggle to make social change stick, how we can pressure our governments to enact change, and how the legacy of this period in time will be that we obliterated a people and their world for ours. Be sure to read Siddharth's book Cobalt Red for the full picture.

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